None of the Beatles had to have warm feelings about what their bandmates were up to after their breakup. John Lennon may have remained on good terms with Ringo Starr for long enough to work with him on a handful of his solo projects like Plastic Ono Band, but Paul McCartney would be painted as the villain of the band for the next few years after publicly suing the rest of his old mates. So it was going to take some real convincing for his fellow Fabs to say something nice about his music, but it’s saying a lot when Starr was the one to take a few shots at McCartney’s first steps as a solo artist.
It would have made more sense for Lennon to take a few swipes at his former writing partner, but the thought of Starr having his teeth out in regards to any album feels wrong. He was always the peacekeeper during the final years of the group, and even when he started making a few sly jabs at those rough years after their breakup, ‘Back Off Boogaloo’ is hardly as insulting as ‘How Do You Sleep’.
But it’s not like the rest of the Fab Four didn’t have good reason to be concerned. Macca had been known as the perfectionist during every incarnation of the group, so hearing him come roaring out of the gate with a demo album like McCartney was already raising a few eyebrows. So when the next album was a collaboration between him and his wife, Linda, people were preparing to call RAM another experimental project gone wrong, and no one was a harsher critic than Starr.
While Lennon admitted to liking bits and pieces of tunes like ‘Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey’, Starr was far more transparent in his view of the record, saying, “I feel sad about Paul’s albums. I don’t think there’s one tune on the last one, RAM. I just feel he’s wasted his time. He seems to be going strange.” But over time, Starr’s low opinion of the album does seem a lot more out of touch than before.
Granted, it’s not like he didn’t have reason to be upset. McCartney’s ear for production hadn’t gone anywhere, but the zaniness of the record was far too strange for anyone to really understand at the time. The homespun nature of the record was already a bit odd, and it was always going to be hard to get on board with a record that changes genres so quickly like on ‘Monkberry Moon Delight’ and ‘Heart of the Country’.
There’s not as much cohesion as you would find on other Beatles records, but those eccentricities are what make RAM a classic record. No, not everything was meant to have the mass consumption as ‘Let It Be’ or ‘Hey Jude’, but from a songwriting standpoint, this is McCartney at his most adventurous, having absolutely no problem with changing his styles wherever he sees fit.
And despite some people not being ready for a few of these songs, many of them hit like a battering ram (pun intended) over time. ‘Monkberry Moon Delight’ is a fantastic bit of psychedelic hard rock, ‘Dear Boy’ has some of the greatest harmonies that Brian Wilson never thought of, and ‘The Back Seat of My Car’ is one of the most epic songs in Macca’s career that doesn’t get talked about nearly as much as it should.
Although Starr never let his opinion of RAM affect his friendship with his old mate, it would be interesting to hear his thoughts about the album over time. Because looking at where music has gone in the indie sphere, anyone who’s wanted to create something a bit off-the-wall to see what it sounds like has this album to thank for giving them the permission to get a bit weird behind the scenes.
