Ringo Starr asked his producer to write more upbeat songs for his new EP.
The 83-year-old rocker has worked with Linda Perry – who wrote and produced all four songs – for his latest project ‘Crooked Boy’ and Ringo admitted he sent her some notes on keeping the tracks positive.
He told Variety: “Even on ‘February Sky,’ it was all about the dark sky everywhere in February, so that’s an emotion in there. But I told her, ‘There’s gotta be a crack — a break in the sky — and the sun is coming out.’ Because all my songs have that. They can be ‘I’m down, I’m this, I’m that… But things are getting better, things are going up.’ They always have a positive upside.
“‘Rewind Forward’ [the title song of his previous EP, from 2023] was like that. ‘Rewind forward’ meant, sometimes you’re in a mood, and if you just backtrack a little and then find that (previous) space, and then carry on from that moment, it helps sometimes.”
And, Ringo revealed he also requested more rock songs.
He said: “I did. (At first) she wrote ‘Crooked Boy,’ and it was all about the story of my life — you know, I was ill, I was better, I found my own way.
“She sent me a couple of them, and then I called her and I said, ‘Linda, write me a rock song!’ And she says, ‘What’s that?’ I said, ‘I’ll leave it there. Just write me a rock song.’ And she did, of course, and it’s called ‘Gonna Need Need Someone’. And it did rock, and she put the band together, and then we did a video with the song playing and we are popping in and out.”