It don't come easy

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It Don't Come Easy is a Ringo Starr song released as a single on Apple Records in April 1971 . The single reached number 1 on the charts in Canada , in the United States and the United Kingdom it came to number 4. It was Starr's first solo single in the UK and his second solo single in the US. The title Beaucoups of Blues , a release from his album of the same name , had already appeared there.

Emergence

Although Ringo Starr is named as the only author of the piece, Bruce Spizer (author of numerous books on the Beatles) writes that he received extensive help from George Harrison in composing the song . Starr later admitted this. In his appearance on the series Storytellers, which ran on VH1 (season 3, episode 4) in 1998, Starr announced the song with the explanation that he had co-written it with Harrison. He went on to say that Harrison had suggested that the last stanza should be about God, which Starr refused, and Harrison's following suggestion should also be about Hare Krishna , he refused. Eventually Harrison suggested making peace an issue, which they could agree on.

Recordings

First version

The recording for It Don't Come Easy began in the late evening of February 18, 1970 in Studio 2 of Abbey Road Studios while working on the album Sentimental Journey . At that time, the piece was still called You Gotta Pay Your Dues . During this first session, George Martin acted as producer , George Harrison played the acoustic guitar and directed the other musicians - Ringo Starr ( drums ), Klaus Voormann ( electric bass ) and Stephen Stills ( piano ). Twenty backing tracks were created before the desired result was recorded. Starr then recorded his vocals and Harrison recorded two electric guitars. At 4 a.m. the recordings were finished and a stereo mix was created.

On February 19, 1970, after overdubbing for Love Is a Many-Splendored Thing , Starr recorded a new vocal track for You Gotta Pay Your Dues . Harrison was absent that evening, but there is a possibility that Eric Clapton was involved. During the session, Starr decided to record the piece from scratch. A new backing track was worked on between 7 and 11 p.m. Take 30 was marked as the best and added two bass passages by overdubbing. But Starr was not satisfied with this new version either and a third attempt was made.

Official version

The recordings for the third version of It Don't Come Easy took place on March 8, 1970 in London at Trident Studios. George Harrison worked as a producer and played guitar. Klaus Voormann (electric bass) and Stephen Stills (piano) were again involved. New to the group were Mal Evans ( tambourine ) and Ron Cattermole ( saxophone , trumpet ). On March 11, 1970, overdubs were added in the same studio. It then took until October 1970 for work on the piece to continue, including a new piano track recorded by Gary Wright . This was followed by a recording of maracas played by Jim Keltner , who recalled in an interview in 2002 that he had arrived in London shortly before in February 1971 to escape the aftermath of the Los Angeles earthquake .

When reports of the work on the play hit the press in March 1970, Apple had let the music press know that there were absolutely no plans to release the recording as a single at this point in time. In fact, the song went officially unreleased until early 1971. An early mix with Harrison as a singer had already appeared on bootlegs . While the instrumentation is almost identical to the later officially published version, the wind instruments are missing, you can clearly hear the accompaniment singers Pete Ham and Tom Evans (both members of the Badfinger group ) singing Hare Krishna during the guitar solo . In the official version, this background vocals can only be heard very softly in the mix. Another difference in the bootleg version is that the guitar solo is not followed by a verse, but rather the guitar phrase with which the piece begins is repeated while the accompanying singers twice “it don't come, oh no, you know it don't come easy ”sing. Only then does the return to the verses and refrains follow.

Publication and reviews

It Don't Come Easy was released as a single on April 9, 1971 in the United Kingdom (catalog number Apple R5898) and on April 16, 1971 in the US (catalog number Apple R1831). On the B-side was the Starr composition Early 1970 .

Alan Smith described the piece in his 1971 review in the NME as undoubtedly one of the best pieces Starr had ever made, highlighting the song's very strong hook and Harrison's performance as a producer. Smith was not entirely satisfied with Starr's singing, but concluded his meeting with the words:

“But on the credit side we have an inventive mind and a dry wit coming more and more into play with better songs. One day he may even write a masterpiece. "

“But on the plus side we have an inventive mind and a dry joke that shows up more and more with better pieces. One day he might even write a masterpiece. "

The criticism in the US music magazine Billboard also found positive words and described the single as Starr's most commercial solo performance to date and predicted a good chart placement. The single came to number 4 on the Billboard Hot 100 . She took the same placement in the British singles chart . It Don't Come Easy sold better than Starr's former bandmates singles out at the time: John Lennon's Power to the People , Paul McCartney's Another Day, and Harrison's Bangla Desh .

On April 22, 1971, a music video for the piece was featured on the BBC music show Top of the Pops . On April 27, 1971, Starr shot a second music video in Norway for It Don't Come Easy , which aired on April 29, 1971 in a new episode of Top of the Pops. A live recording of the play, filmed on June 24, 1971, was shown on the BBC television show Cilla on November 27, 1971 .

Accompanied by Harrison, Voormann and Keltner, among others, Starr played It Don't Come Easy at the concert for Bangladesh in August 1971 , forgetting a few words of the text. The performance is included on the triple album The Concert for Bangladesh . The studio version first appeared on an album in 1975 on Starr's compilation Blast from Your Past . The piece was also used in the 1978 NBC broadcast Ringo . Although Starr recorded new versions for this show, the old studio version was used.

Starr's re-recording of his 1972 hit Back Off Boogaloo for the album Stop and Smell the Roses contains several musical quotes, including It Don't Come Easy . On March 12, 1984, EMI released the single It Don't Come Easy / Back Off Boogaloo in the UK as part of their Golden 45s series.

Ringo Starr regularly plays It Don't Come Easy at concerts with his all-star band. The piece has been on the setlist since 1989 and was played on every tour with the exception of 1992. Live recordings of the title are included on several concert albums ( Ringo Starr and His All-Starr Band , Ringo Starr and His Third All-Starr Band Volume 1 , VH1 Storytellers , Extended Versions , Tour 2003 , Ringo Starr: Live at Soundstage , Ringo Starr & His All Starr Band Live 2006 and Live at the Greek Theater 2008 ) . A live version was released in the US on a bonus CD single that came with the deluxe CD edition of the album Ringo Starr and His All-Starr Band . In 1991, It Don't Come Easy was one of the bonus tracks on the CD release of the Ringo album , alongside Down and Out and Early 1970 . The song Don't Go Where the Road Don't Go from Starr's 1992 album Time Takes Time contains a text allusion to It Don't Come Easy : “Well I said it don't come easy, well I sure know how it feels ”. Another homage can be found in the song Eye to Eye from the album Ringo Rama from 2003, which begins with the lines “Remember when I said it don't come easy, that seems so long ago”.

Cover versions

The American rock band The Smithereens released a cover version of the piece in 1995 on their album Attack of the Smithereens .

occupation

The following musicians played when recording the officially released version of It Don't Come Easy :

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Bruce Spizer: The Beatles Solo on Apple Records . 498 Productions, New Orleans, LA 2005, ISBN 0-9662649-5-9 , pp. 293 .
  2. ↑ Robert Rodriguez: Fab Four FAQ 2.0: The Beatles' Solo Years, 1970–1980 . Backbeat Books, Milwaukee, WI 2010, ISBN 978-1-4165-9093-4 , pp. 28 .
  3. ↑ a b c d e Barry Miles: The Beatles a Diary: An Intimate Day by Day History . Omnibus Press, London 1998, ISBN 978-0-7119-6315-3 .
  4. ^ Neville Stannard: Working Class Heroes . S. 154 .
  5. ↑ a b c d Bill Harry: The Ringo Starr Encyclopedia . Virgin Books, London 2004, ISBN 978-0-7535-0843-5 , pp. 224 .
  6. ↑ a b Chip Madinger, Mark Easter: Eight Arms to Hold You: The Solo Beatles Compendium . 44.1 Productions, Chesterfield, MO 2000, ISBN 0-615-11724-4 , pp. 498 .
  7. ↑ Bill Harry: The Ringo Starr Encyclopedia . Virgin Books, London 2004, ISBN 978-0-7535-0843-5 , pp. 223 .
  8. ↑ Harvey Kubernik: With a Little Help from His Friends: George Harrison and the Concert for Bangla Desh. Rock's Backpages , July 2011, accessed March 23, 2016 .
  9. ↑ a b Barry Miles, Keith Badman: The Beatles Diary After the Break-Up: 1970-2001 . Music Sales Group, London 2001, ISBN 978-0-7119-8307-6 (reprint).
  10. ↑ Bill Harry: The Ringo Starr Encyclopedia . Virgin Books, London 2004, ISBN 978-0-7535-0843-5 , pp. 182, 183 .
  11. ^ Alan Smith: Singles Reviews . In: New Musical Express . April 24, 1971, p. 20 .
  12. ↑ Chris Hunt (Ed.): NME Originals: Beatles - The Solo Years 1970–1980 . IPC Ignite !, London 2005, p. 33 .
  13. ^ Billboard Review Panel (April 17, 1971).
  14. ^ Nicholas Schaffner: The Beatles Forever . Cameron House, 1977, p. 149 .
  15. ↑ Bill Harry: The Ringo Starr Encyclopedia . Virgin Books, London 2004, ISBN 978-0-7535-0843-5 , pp. 174 .
  16. ↑ Robert Rodriguez: Fab Four FAQ 2.0: The Beatles' Solo Years, 1970–1980 . Backbeat Books, New York 2010, ISBN 978-0-87930-968-8 , pp. 123 (illustrated).
  17. ↑ Bill Harry: The Ringo Starr Encyclopedia . Virgin Books, London 2004, ISBN 978-0-7535-0843-5 , pp. 14 .
  18. ↑ Graham Calkin: Ringo Starr - It Don't Come Easy. Jpgr.co.uk, accessed March 11, 2013 .
  19. ↑ Chris Ingham: The Rough Guide to the Beatles . 2nd Edition. Rough Guides / Penguin, London 2006, ISBN 978-1-84836-525-4 , pp. 143 .
  20. ↑ Bruce Spizer: The Beatles Solo on Apple Records . 498 Productions, New Orleans, LA 2005, ISBN 0-9662649-5-9 , pp. 294 .