In a recent video interview, Ringo Starr, the legendary former drummer of The Beatles, reflected on his time with the Fab Four. During the conversation, the 84-year-old was asked if there was a particular Beatles track on which he wished he had played his drums differently.
“I don’t wish I’d played differently on any of them,” Starr responded. However, he pointed out one rare instance where he consciously approached his drumming in a unique way.
“‘Rain,’ I played differently,” Starr explained. “I was trying to be the rain.” He then demonstrated how he created a series of drum rolls that were meant to represent the sound of rain.
Starr continued, “I don’t typically do that sort of drumming, but I did for ‘Rain.’ But I think, you know, you got what I could give you then.”
“Rain,” a psychedelic pop-rock track, was released in May 1966 as the B-side of The Beatles’ single “Paperback Writer.” While “Paperback Writer” hit No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100, “Rain” reached No. 23. The song was later included in The Beatles’ 1970 compilation Hey Jude and the 1988 Past Masters, Volume Two.
The conversation also delved into Starr’s creative process when it came to coming up with drum parts for Beatles songs. Starr explained that he would often come up with his drum parts on the spot while jamming with his bandmates in the studio.
“I can’t really play until you got the song… ’cause I play with the song and the singer,” he noted.
Starr also reflected on The Beatles: Get Back docuseries, directed by Peter Jackson, which featured a segment showing how his drum part for the song “Get Back” evolved from a simple beat to a more complex and distinctive rhythm. Starr admitted that he had “no memory” of how his part came together, so he asked Jackson to dig through the footage, which revealed the evolution of the beat.
“I don’t know where it comes from. You just know it comes, and that’s good for me,” Starr concluded about his process for creating drum parts.
In addition to his reflections on The Beatles, Starr announced that he would release a new country album, Look Up, on January 10, 2025. This 11-track collection will be his first full studio album since What’s My Name in 2019. Look Up was produced by T Bone Burnett, who co-wrote or wrote nine of the album’s tracks. Starr himself co-wrote one song, a duet with renowned country/bluegrass artist Alison Krauss titled “Thankful,” which was released as a single on November 16.
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