Published Harrisongs Genre Rock, pop Label Apple | Released 2 November 1973 Length 4:59 | |
Writer(s) George Harrison, Mal Evans | ||
"You and Me (Babe)" is a song by English musician Ringo Starr, released as the final track on his 1973 album Ringo. Starr's fellow ex-Beatle George Harrison wrote the song along with Mal Evans, the Beatles' longtime aide and a personal assistant to Starr during the making of Ringo. The track serves as a farewell from Starr to his audience in the manner of a show-closing finale, by lyrically referring to the completion of the album. During the extended fadeout, Starr delivers a spoken message in which he thanks the musicians and studio personnel who helped with the recording of Ringo – among them, Harrison, John Lennon and Paul McCartney, and his producer, Richard Perry.
Contents
The recording of "You and Me (Babe)" features a series of well-regarded guitar solos from Harrison, and backing from musicians such as Nicky Hopkins and Klaus Voormann. Jack Nitzsche and Tom Scott contributed the song's musical arrangements.
Background and composition
A friend of the Beatles since 1960, German musician and artist Klaus Voormann has suggested that Ringo Starr's first rock solo album, Ringo, elicited a Concert for Bangladesh-style spirit of goodwill from Starr's key collaborators on the project. In addition to Starr's former Beatles bandmates and Voormann, the participants included Mal Evans, originally a roadie for the group and, by the late 1960s, an occasional lyricist, Apple Records A&R scout, and music producer. Evans also managed Splinter, a South Shields duo who began working with George Harrison in early 1973, initially on the soundtrack for Apple Films' Little Malcolm. In March that year, when sessions for Ringo were under way in Hollywood, Harrison and Evans shared a house in Los Angeles and co-wrote a song for Starr's album, titled "You and Me (Babe)". Evans had some lyrics for what he termed "a meditation song", and asked Harrison for help with the melody, after which Harrison reworked the composition on a piano.
Beatles biographer Nicholas Schaffner describes the song as "a showbizzy send-off". The lyrics allow Starr to farewell the listener, as he sings: "Me and the band, babe, all thought it was great / To entertain you / But it's getting late and it's time to leave." Author Ian Inglis notes the similarity between "You and Me (Babe)" and the Beatles songs "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" and "Good Night", through its incorporation of a songwriting device whereby the performer directly addresses his audience.
In the two middle eights, the lyrics refer to the convivial atmosphere that was a feature of the Los Angeles sessions. Starr concludes the second middle eight with a message to LP listeners, saying that despite the performance being over, "I can still be found / Right here on this record spinning round, with the sound …"
Another reference to the album comes in Starr's spoken line during the playout: "Well, it's the end of the night and I'd just like to say thank you to everyone involved in this piece of plastic we're making ..." He then names three of the main session musicians on Ringo – fellow drummer Jim Keltner, Voormann and keyboard player Nicky Hopkins – before similarly thanking Harrison, ex-Beatles John Lennon and Paul McCartney, producer Richard Perry, sound engineer Bill Schnee, and songwriter Vince Poncia.
Author Robert Rodriguez views Harrison's role in finishing "You and Me (Babe)" as "[a]ssisting the nascent songwriting career" of Evans, who co-wrote Splinter's "Lonely Man" around this time. Evans had also provided uncredited assistance to McCartney in 1967 on song lyrics for the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band album.
Recording
After arriving in Los Angeles from London for a Beatles-related business meeting on 10 March, Harrison admitted to being "knocked out" by the quality of the demos Starr had recorded at Sunset Sound Recorders over the previous week. Harrison played on Lennon's contribution, "I'm the Greatest", and participated in the recording of two songs he himself had written or co-written for Starr's album: "Photograph" and "Sunshine Life for Me". The basic track for "You and Me (Babe)" was also taped during these sessions, which lasted until 27 March, with a line-up comprising Starr (drums), Harrison (electric guitar), Hopkins (electric piano), Poncia (acoustic guitar) and Voormann (bass). Harrison's soloing provides what author Alan Clayson terms "a deft fretboard obligato" throughout the recording, encouraged by Starr's spoken "Come on, lads – play it for me, boys" at the start of the playout.
Overdubs on this basic track included a marimba part, played by percussionist Milt Holland. Underlining the song's role as a show finale, "You and Me (Babe)" also received orchestral string and horn overdubs. The horn parts, played and arranged by Tom Scott, were recorded at Sunset Sound on 12 May, while Jack Nitzsche added orchestration to the song on 29 June, at Warner Bros. Records' Burbank studio.
Release and reception
Apple Records released Ringo in November 1973, with "You and Me (Babe)" appearing as the album's final track, following the Starr–Poncia composition "Devil Woman". The album was a commercial and critical success, as reviewers praised Starr's achievement in coaxing quality contributions from his former bandmates without his personality being lost in the process. The closing monologue in "You and Me (Babe)" acknowledged the spirit of collaboration among the former Beatles, nearly four years after their break-up, although on no single track did they all participate.
Ben Gerson of Rolling Stone magazine wrote of the song: "It is the infectious 'You and Me (Babe),' Ringo's final song, into which all the bittersweet [Beatles] reunion sentiments pour. George on this cut plays better than he has in years; his uncanny knack for peeling away the harmonies and realigning them is fully with him here. He keeps cooking well into the fade-out." Gerson listed the track among the album's "three most wonderful songs", along with "I'm the Greatest" and "Photograph". NME critic Bob Woffinden remarked on the album's loose concept as a stage show, due to "I'm the Greatest" and "You and Me (Babe)" "effectively open[ing] and clos[ing] proceedings" together with the inclusion of "Ringo's name in lights" on the Sgt. Pepper-like album cover. According to authors Chip Madinger and Mark Easter, "You and Me (Babe)" was briefly considered for release as a single.
Author Bruce Spizer views the song as "the perfect closer" for Ringo and compares it with the similarly effective "Good Night", sung by Starr in 1968 to close the Beatles' White Album. Robert Rodriguez describes it as "slick" and "a rather syrupy lounge band impression", redeemed by "one of [Harrison's] sharper post-Beatles solos". Among Harrison biographers, the song is similarly dismissed for its obvious show tune qualities, Elliot Huntley describing it as "syrupy", while Simon Leng views the composition as a "corny effort" that "trades on Starr's chummy stage persona" and pales alongside the "effortless pop craft" of "Photograph". Leng concludes of "You and Me (Babe)": "Here Harrison was writing with a specific singer in mind, and the song reveals nothing other than his ability to write to order."
In 1975, London-based recording engineer David Hentschel covered "You and Me (Babe)", along with all the other tracks on Ringo, for his album Sta*rtling Music. The latter, an experimental work featuring Hentschel on ARP synthesizer, was one of the first releases on Starr's short-lived record label, Ring O' Records.