5. Don’t Pass Me By (1968)
This may be a controversial choice for #5 — fans would be forgiven for expecting Ringo Starr’s songwriting debut to rank higher — but it takes stiff competition indeed to keep The Beatles’ biggest contribution to the country and western canon (and The White Album’s finest track*) from the top spot.
*We assume. Claire’s second-hand copy does not include disc two.
4. A Beginning / Don’t Pass Me By (1968, rel. 2018)
How do you top perfection? The recent 50th anniversary reissue of The White Album gave us a surprise answer in the form of this spliced rehearsal outtake, which expands the comfortable 3:50 runtime of Don’t Pass Me By into a five-minute-plus epic.
George Martin steps up as the true Fifth Beatle with a minute of beautiful, sweeping orchestration (teasing the listener with an almost erotic anticipation for Paul McCartney’s iconic honky-tonk piano), cheekily counterbalanced by Ringo’s playful and seemingly improvised spoken-word outro.
A charmingly simple song becomes a musical landscape of many contrasts, grounded by the firm and trusty weight of Ringo’s three-chord vision. It’s Don’t Pass Me By, only more so.
3. Don’t Pass Me By - Mono Mix (1968)
Ringo had sat with Don’t Pass Me By for at least five years before a single note was ever recorded; in interviews he had mentioned working on his own composition as early as 1964. One can imagine those lyrics carefully folded in his back pocket all through their first US tour, the composer patiently awaiting the right time to show his mates.
But once it reached the studio, the Beatles treated it as a matter of urgency (except for John and George, who expressed no interest and sat the whole song out). According to the comprehensive tome The Beatles: All The Songs (Margotin & Guesdon, 2013), it was the very second track recorded for The White Album. With Ringo feeling frustrated and left out of the band’s meandering studio experimentation, there was a renewed effort to make him feel supported (pp. 482-3).
“It was a very exciting time for me and everyone was really helpful,” he said of those fruitful sessions. “And recording that crazy violinist [Jack Fallon] was a thrilling moment”.
Beatles fans are passionately divided over whether the monaural mix — noticeably faster and a semitone higher-pitched — truly represents Ringo’s original vision. (Audiophiles posit it was originally recorded at its familiar stereo speed, but artificially sped up in mono.) Either way, the speed lends an urgent, raw catharsis. It is the sound of patience rewarded; the violent genesis of an idea desperate to be realised. You can hear the earnestness; the eagerness to please; the plea to be heard. To not be passed by.
2. A Day in the Life (1967)
John and Paul’s achievements are historically often overshadowed by Ringo’s charisma and George’s culinary skills, but they certainly give it a red hot go here.
The world-ending crescendo is quite good (if a bit on the nose), and paved the way for some truly iconic songs to come (such as the following year’s Don’t Pass Me By).
1. Don’t Pass Me By (the fabricated version in Claire’s head with misremembered lyrics and some extra falsetto bits at the end) (2013)
It’s one of the hardest songs for bootleggers to track down (it does not technically exist as an actual recording, and only one person has 24/7 access) but if you buy Claire several gins and ask nicely, she will describe its nonexistent flourishes with such enthusiasm and certainty that the idea has a power all its own.
Beatles fans are in universal agreement: this idealised version of the song is like visiting an old friend in the house they grew up in. You walk into the living room: the wallpaper has changed and framed photos of baby-faced middle-schoolers have been replaced by college freshmen, but still there’s his Dad parked on their plastic-covered kitsch sofa cheering on some bird of prey football team just as his Mum is placing two microwave dinners on TV trays. She says hi and asks about your folks before your friend manages to drag you away and downstairs to the basement where you hear a grand piano lightly twinkling. An off-the-cuff jam session is about to start and everyone has an instrument. You plonk smack bang in the middle of their futon as the hurdy-gurdy keys wind you up and simultaneously loosen that tension sitting in your chest; you’re no longer among your friends’ friends - they’re your friends too. Then the drums hit, then the sleigh bells - one of these exotic carefree layabouts actually brought sleigh bells - then you notice the violin player in the right-hand corner of the room and it’s immediately clear that he’s the best musician out of the lot of them. By now, the lyrics have won you over - simple, yes, but it takes you back to early 60s pop when teenage boys fell for prom queens and they all cried over one another - it’s like the B-side of a Herman’s Hermits record, back when they were in their Beatlesque phase. The singer might not be Peter Noone but he carries the tune with perfunctory head nods and little to no self-consciousness. It could be the echo in this sparse basement, but his bittersweet vocals seem to amplify from within your chest. He could be you and you could be him. At the end, the one playing sleigh bells pats the singer on the back; the violinist starts rolling a cigarette and talking about Rick Danko from The Band. You all play ping pong for two hours, write phone numbers on each other’s wrists and then you go home still humming this little ditty.
Honourable mentions:
Don’t Pass Me By (Anthology 3 Version), Abbey Road Medley, etc.