Category: TV
Ent
Date: 22.10.2004
Printable version
Friday Night with Jonathan Ross, 10.35pm,
22 October, 91Èȱ¬ ONE
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Legendary Beatle Ringo Starr talks song-writing,
sobriety and stardom with Jonathan Ross this Friday
- and he has a surprise for Jonathan when he challenges him to let him
cut his hair for charity: "It's time. You're like Goldilocks!"
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Starr, whose new book, Postcards From The Boys, is published this week
in aid of his charity The Lotus Foundation, talks about his fellow Beatles:
"I love those boys - we've never been called men."
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Starr reveals that he wasn't the only drummer in the band - "John
loved to play drums. The other two wanted to be drummers too" -
and that he nearly quit at the height of their success:
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"[In 1968] I thought I can't play any more, just one of those
moments, I thought it's useless, that the other three were very close.
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"I went knocking on John's door and said I'm leaving."
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Starr reveals that he contributed to Lennon/McCartney classics like
Eleanor Rigby (he wrote the line 'Father Mackenzie, reading a sermon
that no-one will hear') and suggested the titles for A Hard Day's Night
and Eight Days A Week.
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Starr says that one of his favourite songs is Day Tripper and that
he has no regrets about never reuniting after the band split: "We
talked about it twice but we said no. It had gone. We were a great band,
[and] the music still holds up."
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He is still in touch with his fellow surviving Beatle, Paul McCartney:
"Last time he called me was on his birthday. He said, 'Guess where
I am? At John Lennon Airport!'
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"We're still having fun, you know."
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Starr also talks about his long-standing sobriety - "If I drank
at Christmas I'd forget what I had to do in February! - and his musician
son Zak:
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"He's with The Who half the time, and now Oasis. I did all that
father stuff, 'Go to university!', [but] he said, 'I'm a musician dad,
I'm leaving.'"
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Jonathan also welcomes to the show champion jockey Frankie
Dettori; cult comedian Rob Brydon; and there's
music from Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds.
