Amid all the hoo-ha about the new Beatles single ‘Now and Then’, it’s worth noting that another modern-day collaboration between the two surviving Fabs slipped out comparatively unnoticed in recent weeks. Ringo’s latest EP, Rewind Forward, features the first McCartney song written specifically for his old drummer in more than 40 years. While Paul has performed on a number of Ringo’s releases over the past decade or so, ‘Feeling The Sunlight’ is the first custom-made Macca tune to feature on a Starr solo effort since ‘Private Property’ and ‘Attention’ adorned Stop and Smell the Roses all the way back in 1981. True, they did co-write (and, as far as we know, record) a song called ‘Angel in Disguise’ for 1992’s Time Takes Time album but, in one of those baffling decisions which litter Beatles history, it remains in the vaults (a snippet of Paul’s demo is available on YouTube, and it’s not bad at all). So, for those of us who care about such things, the emergence of this track (put together by Macca at his home studio in England, with Ringo then laying down his vocals and drum part in Los Angeles) was something of a big deal, the nearest we can get to brand new, fresh-out-of-the-box Beatles music in 2023. But is it any good? Well, I’ll come to that in a moment.
Rewind Forward is Ringo’s fourth EP in the four years since his last album, What’s My Name. As I’ve said here before, I really don’t understand Ringo’s logic in releasing material in dribs and drabs like this. He claims that recording fewer songs in batches is less daunting then a longer series of sessions to produce enough for a full CD. But then, why not wait until you’ve got an album’s worth of songs and then put them out in one go? I wrote in my review of his last EP that, if you sequence all the tracks he’s released on EPs so far, you’d have a pretty decent album – and they actually sound better when devoured together rather than split into three smaller portions. It’s not like he’s under pressure from anyone to rush new material out. And considering Ringo has announced he already has another two EPs in the can and ready to go (including, intriguingly, a country-flavoured one), I don’t know what’s stopping him doing it. If you were inclined to cynicism, you might point to the fact that each physical EP retails for the same price as a regular CD, despite containing only around a third of the music, and so yields three times the profit. But surely he can’t be doing it for the money at this stage of the game, right?
Regardless, that’s the way Ringo is choosing to release music now, so I guess we just have to get used to it (and with the wonder of playlists, we can always configure our own albums from the material in any case). Encouragingly, the EPs so far have shown a willingness to venture away, if only modestly, from his pop-rock comfort zone, with splashes of reggae (‘Just That Way’, ‘Waiting For The Tide To Turn’), country-folk (‘Coming Undone’), power ballads (‘Here’s To The Nights’) and even Latin-flavoured jazz (‘Free Your Soul’). The material on Rewind Forward is more conservative, but the main problem is that it’s just not that strong; for my money, this is comfortably the weakest of his EPs to date.
Things start promisingly enough with ‘Shadows On The Wall’, the now customary contribution from All-Starr Band regular Steve Lukather, who co-wrote it with his Toto bandmate Joe Williams. This is powered by a great guitar riff and no-nonsense drumming, making for a nice driving song. You can imagine Ringo singing it behind the wheel while motoring down a desert highway had it been released back in the MTV age and, indeed, it would’ve fitted snugly on one of his 1970s or ‘80s albums. Moreover, it has a moody, slightly troubled feel to it, a welcome contrast to the relentlessly upbeat peace, love and positivity refrains which run through almost all his songs these days. The only problem is, you’re waiting for it to kick up a gear at some point but the shift never really comes, so there’s an air of anti-climax by the end. Nonetheless, it’s a solid (if unexceptional) opener. Sadly, that’s as good as this disc gets.
As you might expect, there’s no shortage of optimism and feel-good vibes about the McCartney song, ‘Feeling The Sunlight’ (Ringo even shouts out ‘peace and love’ just before the instrumental break, as if he’d just realised he hadn’t mentioned it anywhere else on the EP). Let’s start with the positives: apart from a couple of overdubs, this is a full-on Paul-and-Ringo show, with some cute guitar playing from Macca. It’s the kind of chirpy, bouncing tune he specialises in, and you have to smile at the opening line: “It’s me, I’m checking around/Trying to make sure everybody’s safe and sound.” And there’s something touching about a man in his 80s penning a tune for his lifelong pal. But all that is not enough to give the song any real substance. I really wish I liked it more; it’s not bad, exactly, just not especially memorable. And it may be because he had to overlay parts already put there by Macca, but the drumming sounds a little clumsy to me towards the end. In an interview with Uncut magazine in 2015, Paul said he wish he’d given Ringo better songs than the aforementioned two on Stop and Smell the Roses. Well, I’d take either of those over this one, any day of the week.
The opening bars of ‘Rewind Forward’, written by Ringo and engineer Bruce Sugar, are quite arresting, indicating Ringo might be trying his hand at a bit of 1980s-style synth-pop. Sadly this is a feint, as normal soft-rock service is soon resumed with the kind of mid-tempo, chugging self-help number he seems to have done a thousand times over the past 20 years. You know the kind of thing: “mountains to climb”, “lessons to learn”, “reach for the stars” and so on. It really stumbles on the “rewind forward” chorus, though. Ringo likens it to the kind of non sequiturs he came up with for ‘A Hard Day’s Night’ and ‘Tomorrow Never Knows’, but I think he’s pushing it there. In this instance, it doesn’t rhyme, it doesn’t scan, and it certainly doesn’t make any sense in the context of the lyric. As I read in an online review, it sounds more like an awkward translation from a foreign language. The song itself is slickly produced and pleasant enough, with some pretty guitar from Joe Walsh. But, ultimately, it’s bland and completely forgettable. There’s nothing about it which says it was made by a Beatle, it could’ve been done by anyone. If this is the sort of stuff Ringo is going to record, I’d rather he didn’t put out anything at all.
The last track, ‘Miss Jean’, is a little better, but not much. Penned by Mike Campbell of Tom Petty’s Heartbreakers (and also featured another All-Starr Band alumni, Ian Hunter), it’s a throwback barrelhouse-style rock ‘n’ roll number. Ringo provides some nice swagger from behind the drumkit and there is an agreeably meaty guitar riff, but that’s really all there is to it. The riff is repeated over and over and over, and the song goes nowhere before eventually staggering to a halt. It reminds me a little of ‘Red and Black Blues’, the outtake from Stop and Smell the Roses which eventually appeared on the 1994 CD reissue, but isn’t as much fun. Kudos to Ringo for trying something a bit heavier, and I do like the line “Here she comes again/With that nothing but trouble grin”. Overall, though, there’s nothing to write home about.
So there we have it. I feel kind of obligated to trot out the “we’re lucky he’s still making music at his age” line again but, at the same time, recent efforts have shown he’s capable of better. Aside from the opener, the tracks here are B-side material, at best (also, what’s happened to his romantic declarations for wife Barbara? His albums always had a big ballad for her, often pretty good, but recent releases have dispensed with his soppy side). Still, we have a couple more EPs to look forward to next year, so – once that little matter of a new Beatles single is out of the way – we’ll have to wait and see what else he’s cooked up for us. I would hope, though, that the Starr bar will be raised a little higher next time out.
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