This was the third of Ringo’s run of post-Beatles hits and the last of his I’ll be posting, because the next one (You’re Sixteen) would probably get us both arrested, and the last one (Only You) is rubbish. So here it is.

Although the only Beatles or post-Beatles I really like are Ringo’s efforts, I have to admit they all owe their success to the guiding hand of his old chum George Harrison, who also co-wrote, produced and played on the previous two, It Don’t Come Easy and Back Off Boogaloo.

The pair wrote this one together in the South of France in 1971 when Ringo and Maureen stayed on after Mick and Bianca Jagger’s wedding in St Tropez.
Ringo hired himself a luxury yacht for the Cannes Film Festival, hoping to launch an acting career, and they were joined on board by Harrison and his girlfriend Pattie Boyd, who came along for the Monaco Grand Prix. Such is the jet-set life.

Harrison came up with the melody, and the pair of them gave its first performance during an evening gathering on the yacht, with all the guests – including Cilla Black – contributing ideas for the lyric.

She liked it so much that she asked her fellow Scouser if she could record it herself but, according to her autobiograpy, he replied: “No it’s too bloody good for you! I’m having it myself.”

It was recorded late the following year between sessions for George’s album Living In The Material World with the same musicians: Harrison (12-string guitar), Nicky Hopkins (piano), Klaus Voorman (bass) and Jim Keltner (drums), plus Bobby Keys on sax, with Phil Spector’s musical arranger Jack Nietzsche adding strings and a choir later to recreate Spector’s signature Wall of Sound.

The video, lending a comic spin to what is really a rather maudlin song, is shot at Tittenhurst Park in Berkshire, the Georgian country pile that Ringo and his wife Maureen had just bought off John and Yoko when they moved to New York.