Don't Pass Me By - Remastered 2009

A track from the 1968 double album The White Album, "Don't Pass Me By" was written by Beatles drummer Ringo Starr, who also sang lead on the song. Along with "Octopus's Garden," released the following year on Abbey Road, it's one of two songs in the group's catalog that he wrote himself. He went on to write some of his solo hits, including "It Don't Come Easy" and "Photograph."

Ringo wrote the song in 1963, five years before it was released. In an interview for a New Zealand radio station during the Beatles' 1964 tour of Australia, Ringo is heard in the background saying, "Sing the song I've written, just for a plug." Then, Paul McCartney says, "Ringo has written a song called 'Don't Pass Me By.' A beautiful melody. This is Ringo's first attempt at songwriting." At this point, Paul and John Lennon sing a verse of it and Ringo says, "It was written as a country western, but Paul and John singing it with that blues feeling has knocked me out. Are the Beatles going to record it? I don't know. I don't think so, actually. I keep trying to push it on them every time we make an album." Paul then states, "Unfortunately, there's never enough time to fit Ringo's song on an album. He never finished it." Ringo put the finishing touches on it while in Rishikesh, India.

The original title was "Some Kind of Friendly."