Ringo Starr – "Back Off Boogaloo" (1972)

Wake up, meathead

Don’t pretend that you are dead

Ringo Starr has had a surprisingly successful solo career.

He’s released no fewer than 19 studio albums – plus a number of live albums and compilations.

And while his first post-Beatles single (“Beaucoups of Blues”) went nowhere, his next eight singles were all top ten hits in the U.S.  (Two of the eight – “Photograph” and “You’re Sixteen” – made it all the way to #1.)

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Ringo Starr was born Richard Starkey in Liverpool in 1940.  

“Ritchie” Starkey’s first proper drum kit – a gift from his stepfather – consisted of a snare drum, a bass drum, and a cymbal that was really a modified trash-can lid.  

When he was 19, he joined Rory Storm and the Hurricanes, which achieved considerable popularity in and around Liverpool.  Starkey adopted the stage name Ringo Starr while he was with the Hurricanes.  (He loved to wear rings, and wanted a name that sounded country and western.)

Ringo (holding the drumstick) on stage
with Rory Storm and the Hurricanes

The Hurricanes and the Beatles were hired to play in Hamburg, Germany, in 1960.  (The Hurricanes got top billing over their fellow Liverpudlians.)

John Lennon invited Ringo to join the Beatles in 1962.  A month after he signed on, the Beatles recorded their first UK single – “Love Me Do.”  (The flip side was “P.S. I Love You.”)

Talk about being in the right place at the right time.

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“Back Off Boogaloo” is thought by many to have been an attack on Paul McCartney.  McCartney was persona non grata with John, George, and Ringo after the Beatles broke up in 1970 because he refused to delay the release of his debut solo album until after the release of the Beatles’ final studio album, Let It Be.

The lines quoted at the beginning of this post seem to be referring to the “Paul is dead” nonsense.

Click here to listen to “Back Off Boogaloo,” which Starr co-wrote with former bandmate George Harrison.

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