Name: Ringo Starr On "A Hard Day's Night" | David Letterman
Uploaded: 2025-07-07T15:01:30.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Ringo Starr On "A Hard Day's Night" | David Letterman' from Letterman on Comedy Buff. Published 2025-07-07. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Ringo Starr On "A Hard Day's Night" | David Letterman' from Letterman on Comedy Buff. Published 2025-07-07. Transcript available.

Do you like being here? You like coming to the Ed Sullivan Theater?
Every 34 years.
It must be impossible not to have very, very vivid memories and experiences
present themselves to you nearly as vividly as they did 34 years ago when you
come here, huh?
Well, I'd like to say yes.
Well, please do.
It was a long time ago.
A long time ago, but my God.
Yeah, it was extraordinary. I mean, just coming to New York was extraordinary.
Sure.
And then, you know, all the kids that were waiting for us and all the radio
madness that was going on.
And then we topped it all with Ed Sullivan.
And there they are. We were waiting for this great buildup.
And Ed just said, there they are, the Beatles.
You were on like four or five shows. Wasn't that the deal that you were showing?
Well, we did the one here, then we went to Florida.
Florida did one in Miami, right?
That was about it.
So just the two Ed Sullivan shows.
As far as I know.
But, you know, maybe there were others I didn't tell you about.
Yeah.
Leave Ringo.
They keep saying.
But, you know, there is, and others have expressed this far more articulately
than I'm about to hear,
but that will never happen again.
What that was, because of the time, because of the music, because of the
personalities,
because of the circumstances of the world and life, we'll never see that again.
No.
It was, uh, watch it.
You know, you all clap or nobody claps.
I don't want just one or two.
Thank you.
You know, the best thing, the best thing, I think, that, uh, happened when we
played the Sullivan,
there was, it was that, uh, that evening, there was less crime in New York than
ever.
Yeah, I would think so.
Yeah.
And around the end.
Even the criminals were watching us.
Absolutely.
But it's, uh, it's a, it's a marvelous thing.
And, um, I'm, you know, I'm happy you're here with us again tonight.
Me too, Dave.
In, in, in, uh, the, the, was there any music that you put together that became
part of the anthology,
I guess, that you were not keen on, that you were unhappy with, and you said,
oh, what the hell,
let's let it go anyway?
No.
You see, the great thing is that we were in charge.
And there was a chance for us to, uh, tell, tell it how we remembered.
Yeah.
And, and the joke was, we all remembered certain things.
We all forgot other things.
I mean, there's one part which was great.
And, uh, you know, we played Shea Stadium and we were all interviewed
separately.
And, uh, the interviewer said, well, the second time you played Shea Stadium,
what, we played it twice?
And then he went to George and he said, uh, the second time you played,
Well, we played it twice.
So we had, like, a group consciousness and group unconsciousness.
The, uh, uh, the movie, A Hard Day's Night, when you, when you, I know, when I
saw that,
I thought to myself, well, that's what really life is like for those guys.
It probably was, wasn't it?
Well, it was in a sort of caricature way.
In a little larger way, perhaps.
The writer sort of stayed with us for a couple of weeks.
Yeah.
And, uh, sort of made notes.
And it was pretty hectic.
I mean, we were always, like, running somewhere, hiding from people, trying to
get to the hotel.
I mean, it was pretty fast.
And you couldn't sort of, in those days, like, just walk out.
No.
You couldn't just walk down the road, which we can now.
And so he sort of, it encapsulated that month of our life.
Well, the music, of course, in the film was great.
And, and the, uh, the sense of, of the movie made it seem just like
unbelievable fun.
It just made it seem like, oh, my God, how cool would it be to be one of these
guys?
Sure.
Well, the thing in those days, it was fun.
I mean, it was all new.
And then suddenly we're making movies and the records are selling.
And you're 20 years old or something.
And people just loved us.
I mean, you know, to be loved is very good.
Yeah, well, I wouldn't know.
As you would know.
Oh, come on.
One day I hope to.
Oh, God.
And you got sons now that are drummers.
Is that right?
I've got sons that are drummers.
I've got grandchildren that are drummers.
Did you teach them to play?
I taught Zach.
I sort of only gave him one lesson.
How old is Zach?
He's 32 now.
Wow.
I don't have children anymore.
30, 32.
He's nearly your age.
And I gave him one lesson.
And then he, you know, I let him get on with that.
Because, you know, we used to have a drum kit in the house.
Like everybody does.
Many houses came with drum kits in the 60s.
And so I went to give him the next lesson.
And he said, oh, I can, you know, he's only 10.
I can do that.
So I said, well, you're on your own.
And, you know, he just, I wanted him to be on his own to get his own feel, his
own style.
Not to, like, do what I do.
You know, we all have to play, like, Anton, the basic rhythms.
But when you do the fill, that's where the art comes in.
Also keeping time.
But, so I wanted him to get his own way.
Yeah.
Did you hear that, Anton?
Keeping time.
And in the family, who's the best drummer of the three of you?
There's no best.
You know, there's no best because we all play different.
And so we all keep good time and we all play different.
And the VH1 storytellers, was that fun?
Great.
Did you know, did this stuff come to you automatically or did you have to
research it a great deal to have stories to say about all the old times?
What was exciting about storytellers is I did material that I, the only time I
had ever done it before was for the record.
Right.
So Octopus's Garden had never been played since we made that record in 1948 or
whenever it was.
You know.
48.
And so, you know, it was really great to get those tracks up and play them.
Yeah.
And so, you know, it was really great to get those tracks up and play them.
Yeah.
And so, you know, it was really great to get those tracks up and play them.
Yeah.
And so, you know, it was really great to get those tracks up and play them.
Yeah.
And so, you know, it was really great to get those tracks up and play them.
Yeah.
And so, you know, it was really great to get those tracks up and play them.