Ringo. How we love thee!
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The most chill Beatle is also the one we’d probably all like to have a beer with or go on a road trip with. Ah, the stories Starr must have about playing with the Mop Tops. He is, in some ways, the proverbial fly on the wall. Because it would seem that in any conflict, he never really got involved. He was just there, relaxed, on the drum kit.
For those who watched the new documentary, The Beatles: Get Back, this was supremely evident. Starr is one of those people who never gets involved but is always there with a smile or a joke.
That’s why we wanted to dive into the drummer’s 20 most famous and best quotes. What did Starr have to say about life, love, and the human condition? Let’s dive in.
1. “I feel the older I get, the more I’m learning to handle life. Being on this quest for a long time, it’s all about finding yourself.”
2. “I’d like to end up sort of unforgettable.”
3. “That’s all drugs and alcohol do, they cut off your emotions in the end.”
4. “I mean, women are very important to me. I don’t know, they just drive me crazy.”
5. “And in a marriage, you can’t TRY and be married. You’re married or you’re not married… as far as I’m concerned.”
6. “I’ve never been able to sit around on my own and play drums, practice in the back room, never been able to. I’ve always played with other musicians. It’s how I play, there’s no joy for me in playing on my own, bashing away. I need a bass, a piano, guitar, whatever, and then I can play.”
7. “At the end of the day, I can end up just totally wacky, because I’ve made mountains out of molehills. With meditation, I can keep them as molehills.”
8. “I’ve said this over and over again, but I love being in a band.”
9. “I never studied anything, really. I didn’t study the drums. I joined bands and made all the mistakes onstage.”
10. “Being in The Beatles was a short, incredible period of my life. I had 22 years leading up to it, and it was all over eight years later.”
11. “I don’t collect any memorabilia. I wish I’d have kept everything I had. But who knew you had to keep it. Just gave it away. And we lost so much and we didn’t look after a lot of it.”
12. “I mean, I was born the day war broke out, but I don’t remember all the bombs though they did actually break up Liverpool, you know. I remember when I was a little older, there was big gaps in all the streets where houses used to be. We used to play over them.”
13. “That’s when we decided to stop in ’66. Everyone thought we toured for years, you know, but we didn’t. I joined in ’62, and we’d finished touring in ’66 to go into the studio where we could hear each other… and create any fantasy that came out of anybody’s brain.”
14. “For me, God is in my life. I don’t hide from that… I think the search has been on since the ’60s.”
15. “The second side of Abbey Road is my favorite.”
16. “People only look at me as a Beatle, but my friends look at me as a whole person. That’s how life works, but it’s not bugging me anymore.”
17. “I think the most exciting thing is that you expect people our age to know the music, but actually a lot of kids know the music, and if anything is left, we have left really good music, and that’s the important part, not the mop-tops or whatever.”
18. “I don’t talk about myself in the third person, and I laugh at people who do.”
19. “America: It’s like Britain, only with buttons.”
20. “I couldn’t put my finger on one reason why we broke up. It was time, and we were spreading out. They were spreading out more than I was. I would’ve stayed with the band.”
Ringo Starr (Photo: Courtesy of MasterClass)
Don’t forget that the “most chill Beatle” was the first to quit the band, during the making of the White Album.