"Don't Pass Me By" is a song by the English rock band
the Beatles
The Beatles were an English Rock music, rock band formed in Liverpool in 1960. The core lineup of the band comprised John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr. They are widely regarded as the Cultural impact of the Beatle ...
from their 1968 double album ''
The Beatles
The Beatles were an English Rock music, rock band formed in Liverpool in 1960. The core lineup of the band comprised John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr. They are widely regarded as the Cultural impact of the Beatle ...
'' (also known as the "White Album"). A
country rock
Country rock is a music genre that fuses rock and country. It was developed by rock musicians who began to record country-flavored records in the late 1960s and early 1970s. These musicians recorded rock records using country themes, vocal sty ...
song, it was the first solo composition written by drummer
Ringo Starr
Sir Richard Starkey (born 7 July 1940), known professionally as Ringo Starr, is an English musician, songwriter and actor who achieved international fame as the drummer for the Beatles. Starr occasionally sang lead vocals with the group, us ...
.
The song was released as a single in Scandinavia (misattributed to
Lennon–McCartney
Lennon–McCartney is the songwriting partnership between the English musicians John Lennon (1940–1980) and Paul McCartney (born 1942) of the Beatles. It is widely considered one of the greatest, best known and most successful musical collabo ...
) and peaked at number one in
Denmark
Denmark is a Nordic countries, Nordic country in Northern Europe. It is the metropole and most populous constituent of the Kingdom of Denmark,, . also known as the Danish Realm, a constitutionally unitary state that includes the Autonomous a ...
in April 1969.
Origin
Starr first played the song for the other Beatles soon after he joined the group in August 1962.
During an interview, Starr commented on the songwriting process, saying: "I wrote 'Don't Pass Me By' when I was sitting round at home. I was fiddling with the piano – I just bang away – and then if a melody comes and some words, I just have to keep going. It was great to get my first song down, one that I had written. It was a very exciting time for me and everyone was really helpful, and recording that crazy violinist was a thrilling moment".
The earliest public mention of the track seems to have been in a
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is a British public service broadcaster headquartered at Broadcasting House in London, England. Originally established in 1922 as the British Broadcasting Company, it evolved into its current sta ...
chatter session introducing "
And I Love Her" on the radio show ''
Top Gear'' in 1964. In the conversation, Starr was asked if he had written a song and
Paul McCartney
Sir James Paul McCartney (born 18 June 1942) is an English singer, songwriter and musician who gained global fame with the Beatles, for whom he played bass guitar and the piano, and shared primary songwriting and lead vocal duties with John ...
mocked him soon afterwards, singing the first line of the refrain, "Don't pass me by, don't make me cry, don't make me blue, baby".
Recording
The song was recorded in four separate sessions in 1968: 5 and 6 June, and 12 and 22 July. Despite references to it in 1964 as "Don't Pass Me By",
it was called "Ringo's Tune (Untitled)" on 5 June session tape label and "This Is Some Friendly" on 6 June label. By 12 July, the title was restored.
During a lead vocal track recorded on 6 June, Starr audibly counted out eight beats,
and it can be heard in the released song starting at 2:30 of the 1987 CD version. The monaural mix is faster than the stereo mix, and features a different arrangement of violin in the fade-out.
George Martin
Sir George Henry Martin (3 January 1926 – 8 March 2016) was an English record producer, arranger, composer, conductor, and musician. He was commonly referred to as the "fifth Beatle" because of his extensive involvement in each of the Beatle ...
arranged an orchestral interlude as an introduction, but this was rejected.
It would eventually be used as an incidental cue for the Beatles' animated film ''
Yellow Submarine''. In 1996, the introduction was released as the track "A Beginning" on ''
Anthology 3''.
At the start of the Beatles' filmed rehearsals at
Twickenham Film Studios
Twickenham ( ) is a suburban district of London, England, on the River Thames southwest of Charing Cross. Historic counties of England, Historically in Middlesex, since 1965 it has formed part of the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames, who ...
in January 1969,
George Harrison
George Harrison (25 February 1943 – 29 November 2001) was an English musician, singer and songwriter who achieved international fame as the lead guitarist of the Beatles. Sometimes called "the quiet Beatle", Harrison embraced Culture ...
, having recently visited
Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan (legally Robert Dylan; born Robert Allen Zimmerman, May 24, 1941) is an American singer-songwriter. Described as one of the greatest songwriters of all time, Dylan has been a major figure in popular culture over his nearly 70-year ...
and
the Band
The Band was a Canadian-American rock music, rock band formed in Toronto, Ontario, in 1957. It consisted of the Canadians Rick Danko (bass, guitar, vocals, fiddle), Garth Hudson (organ, keyboards, accordion, saxophone), Richard Manuel (piano, d ...
in
Woodstock
The Woodstock Music and Art Fair, commonly referred to as Woodstock, was a music festival held from August 15 to 18, 1969, on Max Yasgur's dairy farm in Bethel, New York, southwest of the town of Woodstock, New York, Woodstock. Billed as "a ...
in upstate New York, reported to Starr and McCartney that "Don't Pass Me By" was the Band's favourite track on the White Album. He added that the song's country mood was "their scene completely" and told Starr, "You'd go down a bomb with them".
Critical reception
Among contemporary reviews of ''The Beatles'', ''
Record Mirror
''Record Mirror'' was a British weekly music newspaper published between 1954 and 1991, aimed at pop fans and record collectors. Launched two years after ''New Musical Express'', it never attained the circulation of its rival. The first UK Album ...
'' said that "Don't Pass Me By" had a "carnival atmosphere" and a "'gay Paree' sound", adding that, with Starr's vocal, the track was "very appealing". Writing for the same publication in January 1969, however, David Griffiths said that although he considered ''The Beatles'' to be the best album of the past year, the song's arrangement "has quickly palled on me" and "I do tend to jump the needle here."
Barry Miles
Barry Miles (born 21 February 1943) is an English author known for his participation in and writing on the subjects of the 1960s London underground and counterculture. He is the author of numerous books and his work has also regularly appeare ...
of ''
International Times
''International Times'' (''it'' or ''IT'') is the name of various Underground press, underground newspapers, with the original title founded in London in 1966 and running until October 1973. Editors included John Hopkins (p ...
'' described "Don't Pass Me By" as "Ringo's
C&W number" and a "great song", and highlighted the "excellent fiddle player" and "bag-pipe effect". In his review for ''
The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...
'',
Nik Cohn recognised the track as "the Beatles five years back, straight ahead and clumsy and greatly enjoyable, backed by a beautiful hurdy-gurdy organ and made perfect by Ringo's own vocal, sleepwalking as ever".
Writing in 2014, Ian Fortnam of ''
Classic Rock
Classic rock is a radio format that developed from the album-oriented rock (AOR) format in the early 1980s. In the United States, it comprises rock music ranging generally from the mid-1960s through the early-1990s, primarily focusing on comm ...
'' magazine cited "Don't Pass Me By" as one of the four songs that made the Beatles' White Album an "enduring blueprint for rock", along with "
Yer Blues", "
While My Guitar Gently Weeps
"While My Guitar Gently Weeps" is a song by the English rock band the Beatles from their 1968 double album ''The Beatles (album), The Beatles'' (also known as the "White Album"). It was written by George Harrison, the band's lead guitarist, as ...
" and "
Helter Skelter", in that together they contained "every one of rock's key ingredients". In the case of Starr's song, he said that the track was poorly served by the McCartney-led arrangement, yet it represented a "
southern rock
Southern rock is a subgenre of rock music and a genre of Americana. It developed in the Southern United States from rock and roll, country and blues, and is focused generally on electric guitars and vocals.
History 1950s and 1960s: origin ...
exemplar par excellence" for musicians to come.
Coinciding with the 50th anniversary of its release, Jacob Stolworthy of ''
The Independent
''The Independent'' is a British online newspaper. It was established in 1986 as a national morning printed paper. Nicknamed the ''Indy'', it began as a broadsheet and changed to tabloid format in 2003. The last printed edition was publis ...
'' listed "Don't Pass Me By" at number 26 in his ranking of the White Album's 30 tracks. He wrote: "This country ditty from Ringo was written years before the White Album, and – while suitably thigh-slapping – doesn’t ever outlive its making-up-the-numbers status".
Personnel
Personnel per
Ian MacDonald and supported by
Mark Lewisohn
Mark Lewisohn (born 16 June 1958) is an English historian and biographer. Since the 1980s, he has written many reference books about the Beatles and has worked for EMI, MPL Communications and Apple Corps.
*
Ringo Starr
Sir Richard Starkey (born 7 July 1940), known professionally as Ringo Starr, is an English musician, songwriter and actor who achieved international fame as the drummer for the Beatles. Starr occasionally sang lead vocals with the group, us ...
– double-tracked vocals, drums,
tack piano,
sleigh bells,
cowbell,
maracas,
congas
*
Paul McCartney
Sir James Paul McCartney (born 18 June 1942) is an English singer, songwriter and musician who gained global fame with the Beatles, for whom he played bass guitar and the piano, and shared primary songwriting and lead vocal duties with John ...
–
grand piano
A piano is a keyboard instrument that produces sound when its keys are depressed, activating an Action (music), action mechanism where hammers strike String (music), strings. Modern pianos have a row of 88 black and white keys, tuned to a c ...
, bass guitar
*
Jack Fallon –
violin
The violin, sometimes referred to as a fiddle, is a wooden chordophone, and is the smallest, and thus highest-pitched instrument (soprano) in regular use in the violin family. Smaller violin-type instruments exist, including the violino picc ...
The pianos were both recorded into a
Leslie 147 speaker.
Cover versions
"Don't Pass Me By" has been covered by the
alt-country
Alternative country (commonly abbreviated to alt-country; also known as alternative country rock, insurgent country, Americana, or y'allternative) is a loosely defined subgenre of country music and/or country rock that includes acts that diffe ...
band
the Gourds, by the Southern rock band
the Georgia Satellites on their 1988 album ''Open All Night'', and by
the Punkles on their 2004 album ''Pistol''. Fortnam highlights the Georgia Satellites' recording as a version that successfully captured the "full boogie-rocking potential" that had been ignored in the Beatles' guitar-less arrangement in 1968.
Phish
Phish is an American rock band formed in Burlington, Vermont, in 1983. The band consists of guitarist Trey Anastasio, bassist Mike Gordon, drummer Jon Fishman, and keyboardist Page McConnell, all of whom perform vocals, with Anastasio being the ...
covered "Don't Pass Me By" live as part of their interpretation of ''The Beatles'', released on the album ''
Live Phish Volume 13'', giving the song a
bluegrass arrangement.
Ringo Starr released a re-recording of the song as a bonus track on his 2017 album ''
Give More Love''.
"A Beginning"
"A Beginning" is an instrumental piece composed by Martin and intended as an introduction to "Don't Pass Me By".
It was instead used as an incidental cue in the Beatles' cartoon film ''
Yellow Submarine'' and heard right before "
Eleanor Rigby
"Eleanor Rigby" is a song by the English rock band the Beatles from their 1966 album ''Revolver''. It was also issued on a double A-side single, paired with " Yellow Submarine". Credited to the Lennon–McCartney songwriting partnership, the s ...
". It was included on ''
Anthology 3''
as a replacement of a planned "new Beatles song", "
Now and Then" (along with "
Free as a Bird" and "
Real Love").
"A Beginning" was scored by George Martin and recorded on 22 July 1968, using the same orchestra that appeared on the Beatles' song "
Good Night".
Personnel
*Unknown musicians: twelve violins, three violas, harp, three flutes, clarinets, horn, vibraphone, bass
References
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Don't Pass Me By
1962 songs
1969 singles
The Beatles songs
Song recordings produced by George Martin
Songs written by Ringo Starr
The Georgia Satellites songs
Music published by Startling Music
Torch songs
Number-one singles in Denmark
Country rock songs
Southern rock songs
British country music songs