Ringo – lead
vocals, piano, drums, percussion
Paul – piano, bass
Jack Fallon – violin
“We’ve just done two tracks, both unfinished. The second one is Ringo’s first song, that we’re working on this very moment. He composed it himself in a fit of lethargy.”
– John speaking to Kenny Everett in 1968
Ringo said of his songs, “I have a guitar and piano and play a few chords, but they’re all just chinga-lingas. There’s no great tune comes out as far as I’m concerned.” After a joint writing credit for ‘What Goes On’ and ‘Flying’, his first solo composition was ‘Don’t Pass Me By’. It was the second song to be recorded for The Beatles, and was variously known during its recording as ‘Ringo’s Tune (Untitled)’ and ‘This Is Some Friendly’. This is some mystery, as Ringo had spoken of a song he was writing, called ‘Don’t Pass Me By’, as early as 1963. “There,” he said at the time, “it even sounds miserable.” He had complained to the NME “every time I play it to the lads, they just laugh.” Ringo first played his 1963 song to the group as they were waiting to perform at the BBC Paris Studios on Regent Street. From the chit-chat between Ringo and presenter Brian Matthew on the radio show Top Gear in July 1964, it is clear that the song was substantially in place at this stage. Ringo claims to have written a good one, but no-one wants to record it, at which point Paul chips in “Don’t pass me by, don’t make me cry, don’t make me blue, baby / Cos you know why …” – “I got the ice cream for you” Ringo finishes.
Ringo apparently had a knack for inadvertently writing tunes that had already been written. “The other three would have hysterics tellin’ me what I’d re-written.” Despite being told that the tune for ‘Don’t Pass Me By’ sounded too much like a Jerry Lee Lewis B-side, he continued to plug his composition whenever the group were looking for a song to complete an album. It is hard to imagine that the song on the White Album is very much more refined than the ’63 version, meaning Ringo apparently kept it on a low light for about five years.
For Ringo, then, the composition process was evidently rather protracted. “I usually get a first verse and then I find it impossible to get anywhere else with the song.” Once he had hit upon a tune he would record it over and over with different words, and then pick out the best ones. It’s hard to reconcile this with the amount of time he had to complete the song. The sentiment of the song is, for the most part, quite clear, and the lyric is full of nice detail – but then he springs a rather lurid surprise on us in the final verse, the strongest evidence of this pick-and-mix approach to songwriting. In fact, it’s quite refreshing to hear the “car crash” line kept in the song – it is reminiscent of how Elvis Presley would sometimes play with lyrics in concert, including the famous “laughing” version of ‘Are You Lonesome Tonight?’ from 1969, which included the line “Do the chairs in your parlour seem empty and bare / Do you gaze at your bald head and wish you had hair”.
Ringo had received some guitar and composition tutelage from Klaus Voormann, whom the Beatles had met in Hamburg and who was now playing bass with Manfred Mann. Despite Voormann’s guidance, the song is harmonically quite straightforward, steadfastly clinging to a C–F–G (I–IV–V) progression – as Ringo admits, “I only play three chords on the guitar and three on the piano”. The bluegrass style of composition suits the song and arrangement perfectly, and, as with the E–C#–A–B (I–VI–IV–V) progression of ‘Octopus’s Garden’, Ringo’s guileless vocal, the group’s pertinent performance and the song’s uncomplicated production mask the lack of harmonic and melodic sophistication. The song was released as the B-side to ‘Back In The U.S.S.R.’ in Scandinavia, reaching number one on certain charts. In Denmark, the label credited the song to Lennon-McCartney.
It is a little odd that ‘Don’t Pass Me By’ should have been recorded so early in sessions for The Beatles. Although John, Paul and George were brim-full of new songs after spending almost sixteen weeks away from the studio, they decided to allow Ringo a couple of days to record his piece. This could have been to appease Ringo, who may have been getting frustrated by constantly taking a back seat in musical proceedings, or possibly be some kind of compensation for missing out on the rest of the group’s activities in the ashram. In the event, John and George did not take part in the recording, although John at least was present for one of the two days. On the second day of recording, Kenny Everett called in to Abbey Road to tape an encounter (it was too chaotic to be called an “interview”) with the group and he and Paul recorded a jingle for Everett’s show. Later, while Ringo and Paul continued recording, John and Victor Spinetti were interviewed by Peter Lewis for the BBC2 arts programme, Release, about the impending stage production of John’s In His Own Write.
Considering the relative simplicity of the recording, the track was subjected to a surprisingly high number of tape reductions. Initially, the four tape tracks were filled with Paul’s piano track and Ringo’s drums, onto which the pair added a second piano piece and a sleigh bell. The sleigh bell was all but mixed out of the final track, although it can be clearly heard on the Anthology 3 version of the song. However, there is a brief, separate and seemingly accidental burst under “I was so unfair”, which somehow seems to be on the yet-to-be-taped violin track. The following day, Ringo added a couple of vocal parts onto a reduction of this, filling the tape which was then reduced again. Paul added his bass part onto one of the free tracks, and, on 12 July, the violin contribution was taped. Mark Lewisohn writes that the song’s finishing touch was recorded on 22 July, when 45 seconds of piano was recorded to be edited onto the beginning of the song, cut down to just eight seconds during mixing on 11 October. But the eight-second piano intro can be heard on the tape given by Ringo to Peter Sellers probably in late August 1968, which was almost certainly a mix of the 12 July version. There may have been confusion as an orchestral introduction to the song was definitely recorded during that 22 July session – George Martin was evidently at something of a loss to know what to do with the song – only to be ditched. The entire 50-second orchestral composition was eventually released in 1996, as ‘A Beginning’, the opening track on Anthology 3. However, even as ‘Don’t Pass Me By’ was being released, ‘A Beginning’ was available to contemporary cinema-goers as it part of the just-released Yellow Submarine film soundtrack, appearing immediately following the opening credits.
The version of ‘Don’t Pass Me By’ that appears on Anthology 3, a combination of the instrumental track recorded on 5 June and vocals recorded the following day, shows that the original basic track was edited down for the released song. In fact, the editing was more extensive than Anthology 3 lets on – the first verse was repeated after the short pause in the song, pushing it well beyond four minutes long. This repeat of verse one also includes a rat-a-tat-tat on the “Waiting for your knock, dear” line. The vocals recorded on 6 June included Ringo counting through two bars of rest near the end of the song, which can still be heard on the released version of the song. Although the Anthology 3 track fades before this point is reached, it does include some extra chat along the lines of “I’m waiting for you honey…” that does not appear on the version on The Beatles.
The violinist on ‘Don’t Pass Me By’ is Jack Fallon. A Canadian-born session musician who had played with Duke Ellington amongst others, Fallon also ran the Cana Variety booking agency which had been responsible for a number of Beatles shows in Stroud, Swindon, Lydney and Salisbury in 1962 and 1963. George Martin had done a rough score based on a countrified twelve bar blues, but Fallon’s contribution seems heavily busked.
As with many of the album’s tracks, the mono version is rather different to the stereo, most obviously in the pitch of the vocals, which indicates the mono version is played back slightly faster than the stereo. The mono version also features more prominent violin playing, and the snatch of violin playing at the end is also different – the stereo track uses a copy of the violin recording that lies under the first line of the first chorus, while the mono version’s coda consists of a surprisingly rough-and-ready piece of work which Fallon remembers playing after he assumed the recording was over. He was rather embarrassed by its inclusion – “I was very surprised they kept it in, it was pretty dreadful.”