Ringo Starr ( b24 )

Vocals

Starr sang lead vocals for a song on most of the Beatles' studio albums as part of an attempt to establish a vocal personality for each band member. In many cases, Lennon or McCartney wrote the lyrics and melody especially for him, as they did for "Yellow Submarine" from Revolver and "With a Little Help from My Friends" on Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. These melodies were tailored to Starr's limited baritone vocal range. Because of his distinctive voice, Starr rarely performed backing vocals during his time with the Beatles, but they can be heard on songs such as "Maxwell's Silver Hammer" and "Carry That Weight". He is also the lead vocalist on his compositions "Don't Pass Me By" and "Octopus's Garden". In addition, he sang lead on "I Wanna Be Your Man", "Boys", "Matchbox", "Honey Don't", "Act Naturally", "Good Night" and "What Goes On".

Songwriting

Starr's idiosyncratic turns of phrase or "Ringoisms", such as "a hard day's night" and "tomorrow never knows", were used as song titles by the Beatles, particularly by Lennon. McCartney commented: "Ringo would do these little malapropisms, he would say things slightly wrong, like people do, but his were always wonderful, very lyrical ... they were sort of magic." Starr also occasionally contributed lyrics to unfinished Lennon–McCartney songs, such as the line "darning his socks in the night when there's nobody there" in "Eleanor Rigby".

Starr is credited as the sole composer of two Beatles songs: "Octopus's Garden" and "Don't Pass Me By". He is credited as a co-writer of "What Goes On", "Flying" and "Dig It". On material issued after the break-up, Starr received a writing credit for "Taking a Trip to Carolina" and received joint songwriting credits with the other Beatles for "12-Bar Original", "Los Paranoias", "Christmas Time (Is Here Again)", "Suzy Parker" from the Let It Be film, and "Jessie's Dream" from the Magical Mystery Tour film.

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