DON’T PASS ME BY
“Don’t Pass Me By” is a song by the Beatles from the double album The Beatles (also known as the “White Album”). It was the first solo composition by Ringo Starr. The song debuted at No. 1 in Denmark in April 1969. It stayed in the Top 10 for a month. (More from Wikipedia)
The Beatles also includes “Don’t Pass Me By”; other than “Octopus’s Garden” (from Abbey Road), this is the only song written solely by Ringo Starr (listed under his real name, Richard Starkey as is normal in songwriting credits) that appears on an official Beatles album. Starr also shares a songwriting credit with John Lennon and Paul McCartney on “What Goes On” (from Rubber Soul), and the instrumental “Flying” (on Magical Mystery Tour) shows all four bandmembers as the writers.
Ringo Starr had written “Don’t Pass Me By” many years earlier and first played the song for the rest of the band not long after he joined the Beatles in August 1962. “Don’t Pass Me By” is a simple but clever song and provides a glimpse of the post-Beatles output from the band’s drummer; as I have written before, Ringo has arguably the best body of work as a solo artist of any of the four Beatles.
(June 2015)
