There is a scene in (500) Days of Summer (2009) when Tom asks Summer what her favorite Beatles song is. Summer responds “Octopus’ Garden.” A baffled Tom responds with a pointed “Nobody loves Ringo Starr,” to which Summer answers “That’s what I love about him.”
In a nutshell, that is how anyone should approach the solo career of The Beatles drummer. By all accounts, there are no wrong answers as to who the best member is. That’s usually Paul McCartney or John Lennon depending on your personality. There’s even a select few who would make a strong case for George Harrison. But Ringo Starr? Have you heard any of his songs? The only thing the world agrees on is that he is the luckiest man in the group, having joined the three most accomplished musicians in 20th-century history. This isn’t to say that he’s bad, but his output is much less impressive when forced to be under a spotlight. That’s why he’s become a punchline of sorts despite being in one of the greatest bands to have walked the Earth.
He was the goofball of the group. There is the aforementioned “Octopus’ Garden,” itself jubilant nonsense. As far as nonsense songs go, he’s even beaten at that game thanks to moments like Lennon’s “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” or “I Am the Walrus.” Both have legacies far stronger than any one song that Starr contributed. If there’s any moment that defines Starr’s time in the band, it’s that his best song on lead vocals wasn’t written by him. “With a Little Help From My Friends” was done by Lennon and McCartney and pretty much plays ironically if taken too literally.
Does anybody love Ringo?
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| He does have the best Simpsons cameo, though |
There is something about giving into Summer’s perspective and just admitting that Starr has this offbeat charm. He may not write the best songs, but he cemented his legacy playing drums in a great band. He didn’t need to do anything else and there would be a great chance that he would still have the same reputation he did after 50 years of riding solo, and that’s not only because some of his best moments were written by other people.
In 1974, he released the album “Goodnight Vienna.” When asked what the title means, he said that it was Liverpool slang for “It’s all over.” The cover was also a special level of ridiculous, paying homage to the 1951 sci-fi classic The Day the Earth Stood. Still, as Starr was about to board a spaceship with his pal Klaatu. Of course, homage is a strong word. In reality, all they did was paste Starr’s face over Michael Rennie’s body.
The ad promoting the album featured Starr first entering a spaceship before landing on top of the Capitol Records building and waving to the world as Lennon did the voice-over.
It almost feels like Starr was a guinea pig during his solo career. It helped that he had talented friends, and it explains why “Goodnight Vienna” sounds so promising while only featuring three original songs by Starr. Still, there was something exciting about him doing work with the likes of Lennon (“(It’s All Down to) Goodnight Vienna”), Harry Nilsson (“Easy for Me”), and Elton John/Bernie Taupin (“Snookeroo”). He was a pop star through and through, and so long as he had a good backing band, he’d be all right.
Nowhere was his collaboration more wonderfully dissonant than with “No No Song.” For starters, it was a dumb name for a song. As a musical motif, “no no” is a quick and rhythmic wonder. However, as words preceding “song” it looks juvenile. It’s the Mad Libs you put in before you come up with a better song. Considering that this is a song about sobriety, Starr could’ve gone in a variety of directions. Maybe call it “The Sober Song,” or borrow a note from McCartney’s “Hi Hi Hi” and call it “No No No No.” There are many ways to go about things, but calling it “No No Song” undermines the fact that it’s about a serious subject. Then again, the technique wasn’t much better.
The song was penned by Hoyt Axton and David Jackson. Axton was a songwriter whose work included the Three Dog Night classic “Joy to the World.” However, where Danny Hutton boldly declares “I helped him drink his wine/And he always had some mighty fine wine” as he sings about this bullfrog Jeremiah, Starr was thinking more about sobriety. In one variation of his chorus, he claims that:
No, no, no, no, I don't drink it no more
I'm tired of waking up on the floor
No, thank you, please, it only makes me sneeze
And then it makes it hard to find the door
The rest of the song follows a fairly banal structure. Starr meets a variety of people that includes: a lady from Colombia, a woman from Majorca Spain, and a man from Nashville Tennessee. They offer him some marijuana, a ten pound bag of cocaine, and moonshine whiskey. In every case, they were “the best in all the land." At every point, he breaks into a chorus that sounds like a parody of a recovery group as he won’t “*sniff* no more”. There's also this sense that he's not detesting other people drugs since he never calls them bad, just that he doesn't do it anymore. Also, hearing anyone fit the word sneeze into a pop song is already goofy, especially since alcohol isn’t tickling your nose. It’s an admirable thing to write a song about but it’s undone not only by the plug-in features, but by the music itself.
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| Song Fact #1 |
It’s not necessarily offensive, but the choice for Starr to make it tinged with Caribbean melodies makes the song a bit dated. It was cool for a while to get that piano and guitar tuned just like Harry Belafonte, but the reality is that British people are white and can’t help but look goofy doing it. Speaking as Starr couldn’t get out of bed without doing something ridiculous, his choice to make the song so eccentric felt like a white guy putting on Rastafarian gear and trying to act hip, especially as the chorus would provide percussive clicks and repetitive use of “aye-aye-aye-ah.” As a pop song, it had all of the disposable charms you’d want, but by the time the horns kicked in, Starr was out of his depth and you just had to go along with it.
If that wasn’t enough, there was a subsequent complaint that the song borrowed heavily from a Zimbabwean song called “Skokiaan,” which had been covered by various artists like Louis Armstrong and Herb Alpert. As a result of the copyright claim, certain reissues suggest that the song be called “No No Song/Skokiaan.” Even then, it’s too vague to know if the man known for covering other people’s music actually covered this particular song within the whitest take on sobriety.
For what it’s worth, “Goodnight Vienna” would go Silver in the United Kingdom and Gold in the United States. The goodwill that he had acquired had yet to wear out. Even then, where was he in relation to his former collaborators in 1974? McCartney had the Oscar-nominated title song for Live and Let Die. Lennon had “Happy Xmas (War Is Over).” Harrison had “My Sweet Lord.” Starr? He had this faux-Caribbean ditty that lacked any lyrical wit.
But to stop at Starr’s version of the song is to ignore a variety of things that make this song a fascinating, disposable piece of pop culture. Since he helped write the song, Axton did a cover of the song for his 1975 album “Southbound.” Here’s the catch. Whereas Starr got Harry Nilsson to do backing vocals, Axton did one better, or worse. It’s hard to really say. Given that it was the 1970s and Studio 54 still had a few good years in its system, the idea of anyone abstaining for long was impossible. Who could turn down the moonshine whiskey even as they were singing a song against it? No, Axton decided to get one of the strongest backing vocal groups imaginable with…
Cheech and Chong
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| They seem like upstanding dudes |
So you mean to tell me that the man who once wrote: “You know I smoked a lot of grass and I’ve popped a lot of pills/But I’ve never done nothing that my spirit couldn’t kill” (“The Pusher”) would unknowingly have a comedy duo known for marijuana-laced jokes appear on his song? That’s just absurd. And yet there he was with Cheech Marin talking to Axton about giving him a “supercharger” so that he could have a good time. Axton refuses, making this whole act a literal interpretation of the song. But the question is why even have them on this song if you know they’re affiliated with intoxication? It’s not like they were going to change. Their filmography alone would tell you that they were only getting worse with films like Up in Smoke (1978) and Still Smokin’ (1983). Why, Tommy Chong would go on to be arrested for selling drug paraphernalia several decades later. These were some bad hombres, I tell you what.
It makes one wonder, was this a novelty song? Whereas you can buy Starr’s sincerity, Axton’s take feels laced with far more intentional humor. Not only was it the Cheech and Chong bit, but the Latin flavor made it sound much more upbeat. The howls off in the distance were just as silly. Considering that Axton had his own demons in life, it’s a weird thing to be joking about, but why else would you have a literal endorsement by the stoner comedy icons smack dab in the middle of your track? It’s not out of place in terms of subject, but the intent is extremely convoluted.
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| Song Fact #2 |
With that said, the song did become an international hit and was translated into various languages. There were two noteworthy covers in the French language. The first was by Joe Dassin and called it "Moi j'ai dit non" ("Me, I Said No"). Dassin is a bit more kind in his subjects, discussing his refusal of money, marriage, and political office. There was also Robert Demontigny who sang "(Non non non non) Je suis un mari fidèle", ("I'm a Faithful Husband"). In this case, he refused women’s advances before changing his mind when he finds his wife kissing his best friend. There was also a noteworthy Brazillian Portuguese version by Raul Seixas who sang "Não Quero Mais Andar na Contra-mão" ("Don't Want to Ride on the Wrong Way Anymore"). Like Starr and Axton, the song was drug focused and featured Seixas turning down Colombian marijuana, Bolivian cocaine, and Argentinian chloroethane spray.
They’re all worth listening to, if just because they somehow work better outside of the confined logic of the English language. For starters, Dassin’s song sounds beautiful and has a traditional French feel. Like Starr with the not-not borrowing “Skokiaan” song, it almost seemed better when it was changed just a little. It just goes to show that the melody was fine, but sometimes who’s singing is more important.
There’s little to suggest that Starr ever made a lot of great songs. The b-side, “Snookeroo,” was more conventional by nature but still pretty catchy. The thing is that he still can sing really well when called upon. It’s just that sometimes it becomes confusing why he chooses the titles that he does. Much like pasting your face over somebody’s else’s movie and calling it your album cover is borderline plagiarism, he has this dissonant charm that you’ll either understand or dismiss outright.
Did Mickey Dolenz do the third-best cover?
Probably
Does anyone love Ringo? To be honest, he may be the easiest to relate to. His post-Beatles career never was on par with his bandmates, and yet he chose to go off in whatever direction he saw fit.
Want to make a Caribbean pop song? Sure, why not. Want to fly in a spaceship atop the Capitol Records building? Give me a time. Do you want to call your holiday album “I Wanna Be Santa Claus”? Is the sky full of diamonds?
He didn’t let the fact that he was pushing the limits of free spirit too far stop him from enjoying his career. We all have friends who are more talented than us, and it’s easy to feel jealous sometimes. We will never be as good as them even if we write a masterpiece. That’s how I feel about Starr. He’s still trying, as we all should, to be ourselves. The fact that he gets by with a little help from his friends makes his shaggy dog status all the more endearing.
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