Ringo Starr’s 20th studio album is well underway, with What’s My Name set to debut October 25th. The album will feature a cover of John Lennon’s “Grow Old With Me,” which appeared on the posthumous 1984 release with Yoko Ono, Milk and Honey.
The song is one of the last ones Lennon wrote before his death. Very fittingly, Starr recruited former bandmate Paul McCartney to contribute bass and backing vocals on the cover, with Starr himself handling lead vocals.
According to Starr, he’d run into our dear friend Jack Douglas, who worked closely with Lennon on albums like Imagine and Double Fantasy. The inspiration to record “Grow Old With Me” came after Douglas asked him if he’d heard the “Bermuda Tapes”—a collection of Lennon demos from 1980.
Douglas contributed a string arrangement on Starr and McCartney’s upcoming version of “Grow Old With Me,” which includes a line from George Harrison’s “Here Comes the Sun.”
Starr has spoken about the cover with Paul McCartney in the following statement:
“I sang it the best that I could. I do well up when I think of John this deeply. And I’ve done my best. We’ve done our best. The other good thing is that I really wanted Paul to play on it, and he said yes. Paul came over and he played bass and sings a little bit on this with me.
“So John’s on it in a way. I’m on it and Paul’s on it. It’s not a publicity stunt. This is just what I wanted. And the strings that Jack arranged for this track, if you really listen, they do one line from [George Harrison’s] ‘Here Comes The Sun.’ So in a way, it’s the four of us.”
The title track can be heard below. Other musicians featured on the album include Joe Walsh, Edgar Winter, and Dave Stewart.
