THE HIT HAMMER: Ringo Starr's "Photograph"

(The Hit Hammer is where I'm reviewing each #1 song on the Billboard Hot 100. Starting from when the chart started in 1958 and eventually working my way to the present. To see my inspiration and more information about this blog, please CLICK HERE)

Ringo Starr - "Photograph"

Hit Number 1: November 24, 1973

Stay at Number 1: 1 Week

Ringo Starr is best remembered as the "funny Beatle." Paul and John were the ones fighting for the lead and George was happy being the quiet guy, but if there was a Beatle you'd ever want to go out and have a beer with, it would have to be Ringo. Anytime your biggest contribution to your band is singing a song about living in a yellow submarine, you're not going to be taken seriously by anyone. But I think that's how Starr wanted it to be, I think he relished that stuff. (The Beatles' "Yellow Submarine" somehow made it all the way up to #2 in 1966. It's a 5) But surprisingly, after the Beatles broke up in 1970, Starr began to dive into more serious topics for his solo material. His first big solo hit was a song he came up with while dealing with the Beatles breakup. That song would come to be known as "It Don't Come Easy", a song that's really about finding peace in hard times. (It made it to #4. It's an 8) However, Starr's first solo #1 hit is possibly his most serious song ever.

"Photograph" isn't entirely all Starr's work. In fact, he's not the only Beatle to contribute to the song's making. While Paul McCartney and John Lennon pretty much hated each other for years after the Beatles' breakup, Starr and George Harrison remained pretty good friends. Harrison performed with Starr on "It Don't Come Easy", and co-wrote "Photograph" with him. "Photograph" is a song about a relationship that ended, and the guy narrator is having a hard time dealing with it. All he has to remind him of the relationship is a photograph. It doesn't sound like something Starr would write, even with the help of a deep-thinking songwriter like Harrison, but if you really think about it, you can start coming up with some ideas. Since Harrison and Starr weren't responsible for much of the drama with the Beatles, maybe "Photograph" was a song strictly about the Beatles nostalgia. Maybe they were having a hard time dealing with the breakup, and "Photograph" was a way to help them cope? It's more likely that it was simply just a sad love song that the two came up with, but it's sometimes fun to imagine there was something different going on.

The most interesting thing about "Photograph" is that it uses Phil Spector's famed "Wall of Sound" technique, which uses a more orchestrated approach into making music. If you remember, the Beatles turned to Spector to help with the Let It Be album, but it ended up causing more damage than help. McCartney hated what Spector did to his songs and that was the first step to the Beatles' demise. (If you want to read more about that, I covered it pretty extensively in the "The Long and Winding Road" review) Harrison and Starr were both annoyed with McCartney, and they seemed to be okay with Spector's handling of their music. Whether Spector had anything to do with "Photograph" or not, however, is unknown, but he might have served as some sort of inspiration. Either way, the Wall of Sound-like technique on "Photograph" helps make the song. It swells up into a nice, pleasing piece of music.

That's really the only great thing to say about "Photograph" though, as the song's pretty generic other than that. Starr never had a great singing voice, but he's capable of holding a melody, which is what he does on "Photograph". His voice gets drowned out by everything else going on around him, but he's someone who I'd bet was okay with it. Though Starr was a very funny dude, he doesn't strike me as someone who craved attention a lot like his former bandmates John and Paul. Something generic, but pleasing enough is something that was perfect for Ringo. and it fits right in with '70s pop. If it ever comes on the radio or another music-streaming service, I'd be perfectly fine listening to it. Unfortunately, I can't say the same for his second #1 hit.

GRADE: 6/10