Ringo Starr Talks Paul McCartney Collaboration on "Y Not"

With his new album Y Not due out in January 12th, Ringo Starr recently chatted with LP33.tv about one of the more anticipated tracks on the LP, a collaboration with his former Beatles bandmate Paul McCartney called "Walk With Me." As Rolling Stone previously reported, Macca features on a couple tracks on Y Not, but "Walk With Me" finds Starr and McCartney sharing vocal duties on a Ringo album for the first time since 1998's Vertical Man.

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"He came over to play bass on another track called 'Peace Dream,' and the he heard 'Walk With Me' and said 'I think I have something for this, gimme a pair of cans and I'll be on the mic,'" Starr says. "And then he just did what he did and enhanced it 100 percent." "Walk With Me" was written by Starr and Van Dyke Parks, and Ringo adds that the track wasn't originally conceived as a potential collabo with his Fab Four mate.

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Other artists that appear on Y Not include Ben Harper, Joss Stone, Richard Marx and Starr's improbable brother-in-law, Eagles guitarist Joe Walsh. Y Not also finds Starr serving as his own George Martin, as the drummer also takes a seat in the producer's chair for the new album. The autobiographical "The Other Side of Liverpool" and opening track "Fill in the Blanks," which features Walsh, will also appear on the album, Starr's first since 2008's Liverpool 8.

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Song Stories

“Let My Love Open the Door”

Pete Townshend | 1980

A peppy, hopeful love song, "Let My Love Open the Door" became a U. S. Top Ten hit for Pete Townshend in 1980, anchored by the kind of repeating synthesizer figures that he'd used in some of the Who's recordings in the previous decade. Although Townshend brushed the song off as "just a ditty" in Rolling Stone shortly after its release, in 1996 he revealed it was about love of the holiest sort. "It's supposed to be about the power of God's love," he remarked. "That when you're in difficulty, whether it's major or minor, God's love is always there for you."

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