{"id":302596,"date":"2025-12-07T04:02:09","date_gmt":"2025-12-07T04:02:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/302596\/"},"modified":"2025-12-07T04:02:09","modified_gmt":"2025-12-07T04:02:09","slug":"the-song-ringo-starr-and-john-lennon-agreed-defined-the-1960s","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/302596\/","title":{"rendered":"The song Ringo Starr and John Lennon agreed defined the 1960s"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"John<\/p>\n

(Credits: Far Out \/ Alamy)<\/p>\n

Sat 6 December 2025 18:30, UK <\/p>\n

If most music fans were asked to pick their favourite song of the 1960s, they would most likely pick something from The Beatles<\/a> catalogue. <\/p>\n

With 12 studio albums to their name and a whole host of experimentation to go with it, there\u2019s certainly no shortage of songs to pick from. Whether it was the bright-eyed blues rock of \u2018Twist And Shout\u2019 or the psychedelia of \u2018Tomorrow Never Knows\u2019,<\/a> their entire discography defined the sound of the decade. <\/p>\n

But it was that latter style that represented something more interesting for the band. It was them with their shackles completely off and feeling comfortable to embrace the open-mindedness of the regular people. Through their experimentalism, the band were no longer the most famous people on the planet, they were free-thinking hippies, like the rest of their peers, getting equally as excited by the sound of innovative music.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But this fascination wasn\u2019t just a sonic sugar rush. No, this music that The Beatles were creating represented something far wider. It was about liberal political thinking, an openness to new sociological ideas and at the very least, a statement of style and fashion.\u00a0<\/p>\n

So by the late 1960s, their turn into psychedelic music allowed them to rub shoulders with some of their stylish peers, be it Jimi Hendrix<\/a>, Pink Floyd or Cream. But it was a song from another artist that really caused a stir within the band and acted as somewhat of a creative north star for them. Procol Harum\u2019s \u2018Whiter Shade Of Pale\u2019 found its way to the Fab Four and almost unanimously ripped through the band like an arrow of influence. <\/p>\n

In fact, John Lennon got borderline giddy over the song, as Beatles biographer Ray Coleman vividly remembers. He said, \u201cWe spoke a little about the state of the music scene, and he (Lennon) said there was one \u2018dope\u2019 record which he couldn\u2019t get off his mind. He couldn\u2019t remember the title. All other pop music of that period was \u2018crap\u2019, one of his favourite words at that time.\u201d<\/p>\n

He continued, \u201cNext day John phoned me,\u201d Coleman continues, \u201cI remembered after I\u2019d gone what record it is that I can\u2019t stop playing,\u2019 he said. \u2018It\u2019s that dope song, Procol Harum\u2019s \u2018Whiter Shade Of Pale\u2019. It\u2019s the best song I\u2019ve heard for a while. You play it when you take some acid and \u2026 whoooooooo.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s likely Lennon then took the record into the Beatles studio to play to his bandmates. Because later down the line when Ringo Starr was asked to name a standout song of the decade, he too opted for Procol Harum.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Starr said, \u201cPersonally, I always think of Procol Harum<\/a>. Everyone else thinks of me and the Fabs, but I think of Procol Harum, because to me \u2018A Whiter Shade of Pale\u2019 is the ultimate \u201860s record.\u201d<\/p>\n

It wasn\u2019t just Starr and Lennon either. The likes of Ozzy Osbourne and Keith Richards highlighted the psychedelic track as an all time classic, further proving its place within the pantheon hippie history. <\/p>\n

Despite Lennon\u2019s claims that it perfectly soundtracks an acid trip, the song isn\u2019t outrightly experimental, like some of The Beatles\u2019 LSD inspired music. Instead, it goes to show that despite the appetite of esoterica, music fans of the era were style focused on melody and perhaps more importantly, emotion.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Related Topics<\/p>\n

The Far Out Beatles Newsletter<\/p>\n

All the latest stories about The Beatles from the independent voice of culture.
Straight to your inbox.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"(Credits: Far Out \/ Alamy) Sat 6 December 2025 18:30, UK If most music fans were asked to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":302597,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[96,128,24566,10447,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-302596","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-music","10":"tag-ringo-starr","11":"tag-the-beatles","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom","14":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/302596","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=302596"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/302596\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/302597"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=302596"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=302596"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=302596"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}