Friday, April 11, 2008

Ring O'Fire

According to the liner notes for Photograph: The Best of Ringo, the solo on "You're Sixteen" is played on something called a mouth sax. I don't know who they're trying to kid: I know a kazoo when I hear one. It's played, by the way, by none other than Paul McCartney.

Ringo doesn't play this song anymore. "I can't stand there anymore singing those lyrics about a girl being sixteen," Starr said. "I did it in Texas and part of the act is I would go up and point at a woman and sing 'You're Sixteen' and then signal, like, 'Well, maybe not.' This woman stood up like she wanted to stab me. I couldn't look that direction the whole night." Well, yeah, but that's Texas for you.

I think the video is kind of amazing for its time, which is early 1974. And not just because Carrie Fisher is in it. Carrie was seventeen when this was made, which I suppose is close enough. It's because it's amazing to think there was a time when a guy with a big beard and clunky glasses could have been cool. Ladies and gentleman, the Number One song in America for the week of January 26, 1974:

1 comment:

Gavin said...

"You walked out of my dreams and into my car"?

Boy, Billy Ocean knew a plum line when he heard one.