— #RingoStarr (@ringostarrmusic) December 25, 2020ADDED: From Craig Brown's "150 Glimpses of the Beatles":
Alone of all the Beatles, Ringo possessed no talent for composing. But one day, in a sudden flash of inspiration, the germs of a song entered his head, as if from nowhere. He worked on the song for three hours, and presented it to the other three the next day. After an awkward silence, they felt obliged to point out that it had already been written and recorded by Bob Dylan.
Brown doesn't say what Dylan song this was. But what song could it have been? It would have to have been something simple. But what? I try to think of a simple Bob Dylan song from the 1960s, and I think "I Want You," because that's a simple sentiment: "I want you/I want you/I want you/So bad."
I have somewhere else I want to go with this post, but writing out the chorus like that, I'm smacked in the head with the realization that a non-Ringo Beatle did in fact write — and record — that very song originally written by Bob Dylan, same title and all: "I Want You." Lyrics: "I want you, I want you so bad."
Did no one feel obliged to tell John Lennon that Bob Dylan had already written and recorded that song? No, obviously not. And it's not as if Lennon fleshed out the song. His "I Want You" hardly has any lyrics. It's just "I want you so bad/It's driving me mad" repeated.
Originally, I was going to say that Ringo couldn't possibly have believed he'd written "I Want You" because it has complicated Dylanesque lyrics: The guilty undertaker sighs/The lonesome organ grinder cries/The silver saxophones say I should refuse you... But Lennon's "I Want You" shows how Ringo might have done it. Just use the chorus. The chorus is perfectly simple.
