WE CAN’T WORK IT OUT

RINGO has revealed that when he presented his fellow Beatles with his first songwriting attempts they would “roll around laughing”.

He spent four years pitching song ideas to John, Paul and George before they took one.

By the time the group split in 1970 he had just two song-writing credits as sole composer – for Octopus’s Garden and Don’t Pass Me By. He is credited as a co-writer of others including What Goes On and Flying.

Ringo said: “I wrote many songs and I would present them to John, Paul and George and they would roll on the floor laughing.

“What I tended to do was rewrite different words to well-known songs. That is how I started.

“I would say, ‘I got this song, guys.’ I would sing this song to them and they would roll on the floor hysterical. I sort of got better at it by the late 60s.”

Ringo admits: “There was not a lot of room to get a song on the album with John and Paul. They were the writers and they wrote great songs.

“And then George started coming up with his songs, and then I started coming and I was just getting into my roll and it all ended.”

He is reuniting with bandmate Paul virtually for an online 80th birthday bash today.

Covid-19 meant that he had to cancel an LA party so he switched it to a streaming show with many of his favourite performers.

The broadcast will also feature the premiere of a guest star version of Ringo’s Give More Love that features Jeff Bridges, Jackson Browne, Elvis Costello and Peter Frampton.

Ringo is also asking today, as he does each year on July 7, for fans worldwide to stop what they’re doing at noon and flash the peace sign.