The Story Behind a Lost George Harrison Song About Ringo Starr
It looks like Ringo Starr may be ushering a new George Harrison composition into the world.
Harrison’s widow Olivia tells The Sun in the U.K. that she discovered some lyrics to a song called “Hey, Ringo” — which includes the line “Hey Ringo, now you I want you to know/That without you my guitar plays too slow” — in a folder inside the bench of an old piano and has given them to Starr.
“He’d never seen this song before. He was so surprised,” Olivia Harrison said. She noted that her husband “would put down a notebook and forget where he left it. A piano bench was the obvious place to stash the night’s debris;” She dates the song to about 1970 and plans to “dig a little” to see if Harrison committed it to tape at all.
There’s no word yet on what Starr intends to do with the song; He’s been working on a new album with help from Paul McCartney, Joe Walsh, Peter Frampton, Van Dyke Parks and others with no title or release date yet announced.
Gary Graff is an award-winning music journalist who not only covers music but has written books on Bob Seger, Neil Young and Bruce Springsteen.
