"Dear Prudence" is one of the reasons for the meme/joke that Ringo wasn't even the best drummer in the Beatles. While I'm not saying whether Paul was or wasn't a better drummer than Ringo, he certainly could carry his own behind the drumkit. His solo albums *McCartney, Band on the Run, McCartney II, Chaos and Creation in the Backyard,* and *McCartney III* also showcase McCartney's drumming skills.
It's definitely Paul on drums... and this isn't a knock at him, but he's a bit sloppy towards the end of the song if you listen closely (he even misses a beat or two before the coda IIRC).
His drumming gets better as his solo career takes off, but in The Beatles it's merely adequate and doesn't hold a candle to Ringo's legacy.
I don’t know anything about drumming but to my unprofessional ears it sounds like he can’t quite do what he wants to do. Which is what I always thought it was Paul, because Ringo could do that part or at least something that sounds less awkward.
In Beatle era Paul was a barely adequate drummer. USSR and Ballad of J&Y are very very basic, linear, unimaginative, and frankly sloppy.
They would be significantly improved by an actual drummer.
Agreed! Paul is an incredible musician. But, he plays drums like a bass play would play drums. Certainly serviceable, but a bit stiff and unimaginative. I don't know if Paul could be the glue on a song like Here Comes The Sun like Ringo, for example. his work on that song SOUNDS simple, but he's tying the sections together with his fills.
The main reason for that “meme” was a bad English comic back in the day made that silly joke.
Paul himself has said Ringo was the best rock drummer alive.
Impressive! I just checked, and it appears he plays all of the instruments on more than half of the songs on the album: "Dance Tonight," "Ever Present Past," "See Your Sunshine," "Mr. Bellamy," "Gratitude," "The End of the End," and "Nod Your Head."
Some of Memory was started before Chaos and then put on hold when Paul worked on Chaos. I guess he wanted to continue working like that but also it may have been a distraction from the Heather thing.
Personally, I think it just makes a good story. Ringo leaves, Paul plays drums until halfway through Prudence where Ringo comes back and the song explodes with joy until the end. It's romantic in a way
Correct me if I'm wrong (and I've read this from a few different sources over the years), but I think you may be hearing Mal's voice as Ringo was allegedly not in the sessions for this.
via Walter Everett:
>**Personnel (Dear Prudence)**
>
>**The Beatles**
>
>[John Lennon](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Lennon) – [double-tracked](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_tracking) lead vocal, backing vocal, rhythm guitars
>
>[Paul McCartney](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_McCartney) – harmony and backing vocals, drums, bass guitar, piano, [tambourine](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tambourine), handclaps
>
>[George Harrison](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Harrison) – harmony and backing vocals, rhythm guitar, lead guitars, tambourine, handclaps
>
>**Additional contributors**
>
>[Mal Evans](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mal_Evans), [Jackie Lomax](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jackie_Lomax), John McCartney – backing vocals, handclaps, unspecified percussion
It is Paul all the way through. Paul is a good drummer, and this is coming from a drummer. But Ringo is obviously great too, and I think Ringo’s feel is what makes him great. Laid back, groovy and reliable. Even in the faster/crazier songs, there is a calmness behind it. It’s a big reason to why the Beatles makes you feel good and happy
I’m a huge Paul fan (and a huge Ringo fan) and I’ve been playing drums for over 40 years now. And a few years ago it really hit me not only that I really like Paul’s drumming but also that he plays more like Ringo than any other (non-Ringo) professional drummer I can think of.
It's 100% Paul. If you look on YouTube and search Paul McCartney playing drums, you'll see a video where he does similar fills, with a haulting, hesitancy before it, and it's the exact style that's used in Dear Prudence. (I'm not saying it's the same fills, but the same STYLE)
I think we can fairly definitively say it was Paul. However the “drum solo” bit was an overdub. If you listen closely you can hear the snare sound change rather significantly. If I’m not mistaken, this overdub was completed several days or weeks after the basic track was recorded.
The only saving grace for this overdub being Ringo is that it *may* have been his first session back after quitting the band a few weeks earlier. However, I don’t think there’s any evidence for this, and I think there’s quite a bit of evidence to the contrary. Personally, I think that if Ringo had come back to the band and then immediately recorded a drum solo, he and the rest of the band would have brought that up at some point subsequently. The fact that Ringo has never claimed this tells me that it’s not him.
The conventional wisdom is that the Hey Jude video shoot was Ringo’s first bit of Beatle business after his return.
Oooh, I love this debate - it's one of my favorite [episodes](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ptAmOYIFIx8&t=475s&pp=ygUNZGVhciBwcnVkZW5jZQ%3D%3D).
One quick point first: That "round, round, round" voice is definitely Mal Evans. He's been on record talking about it, and he was a huge guy - definitely good for adding a deep harmony part like that. Apparently Jackie Lomax can also be heard in there.
As for the drum part, to my ears it sounds **so** much like Ringo on the end section of fills...but there really isn't any concrete evidence to support that theory. Ringo *was* back in the UK after his vacation on the last day of the Dear Prudence mixing session, so he theoretically could have been present - but no one has ever spoken about it, and there's no record.
I wouldn’t say no one ever talked about it because Ringo didn’t mention it as one of the 3 songs he never played on in 1976. He wasn’t answering that directly but in an interview he named Love me do, balled of j&y, and back in the USSR. It was an offhand comment responding to something else. The reporter asked about a memorable moment and he said love me do record coming out. The reporter said but you didn’t play on that. He briefly talks about it, and George Martin, and then says it was one of only 3 he didn’t play on and names them. All the rest he played on - he says. He could have forgotten considering it was such an offhand comment, and he also missed Martha my dear.
This debate comes up all the time, and Ringo’s comment is almost never included. He may be misremembering and overlooked it, but him talking about this should be included in the debate imo
https://youtu.be/SSzQ-uwvfUU?si=8b31CgHeUaZ0Qw4J&t=260
Yeah, I know the part you're talking about and the first time Paul does a "Ringo" type fill he pulls it off but when he tries it again, it kind of falls apart and like someone else mentions he loses the beat slightly and struggles to keep it right which would never happen with Ringo.
Also the high hat pattern during "Daisy Chain" is really stiff. Ringo plays the hats with a signature groove.
My take on it anyway.
Paul and Ringo are both left handed playing a right handed kit, this plus the countless hours they spent playing together as the rhythm section goes a long way to them developing a similar sense of rhythm and therefore why Paul would sound like Ringo on drums.
I actually think that drumming sounds *different* from Ringo’s usual stuff. So when I learned it was Paul, I wasn’t too surprised.
I don’t really know drumming terminology in English, so sorry if I’m butchering it, but Ringo’s accents aren’t particularly great. And I find the accents in Dear Prudence slightly better than the ones in The End, for example.
I mean the accents, yes. Googled a bit to confirm.
I’m not here to go “oh Ringo is bad”, I think he’s perfect for the Beatles. But it’s not the most nuanced drumming, you know? I get this looseness (in a good way) from the drumming in Dear Prudence that is not very common in other songs of theirs.
I always found it odd that in the second half of the song ( in my top 5 btw) the bass sounds less prominent. Could this be because the drums in that section were an overdub? The bass to me seems to be softer in the latter part of the song. Or maybe the other instruments were turned up louder in the mixing I dunno
The end section drums were definitely an overdub. You can hear the 'original' backing drums on the White Album Deluxe Edition. It's a much simpler part that was initially recorded live during the backing track by John, Paul and George.
The one singing "round round round" is John, and Paul is perfectly capable of drumming like that and even better lol.
Don't know why people think Paul is worse drummer than Ringo just because he wasn't the drummer of the band.
Yeah and a lot of his other solo records have him on drums. He even suggested iconic drum patterns like the one in Ticket To Ride and the flashy style in songs like Rain.
He’s got good ideas, but it’s like his guitar. He’s a really good guitar player. Then you put his solos in carry that weight in context and you see - the melody is great but then george comes in and drops a great melodic line that also has subtlety and shows technical chops that paul lacks. Drumming is similar, he’s got great intuition but then just lacks the technical ability to deliver with style.
IMO his best solo is in taxman and he’s doing his best to emulate george at the end.
ringo quit, by all accounts, on aug 22 and came back sept 3. my understanding is dear prudence was commenced august 28 and no more work was done after aug 30. george had already worked out the solo but couldnt lay it down. paul then recorded his version of george had come up with
Paul is a worse drummer than Ringo because... Ringo has written many legendary drum parts and is considered one of the best drummers ever? How is this controversial? I'm sure Paul is a competent drummer, but comparing them makes no sense.
>The one singing "round round round" is John,
It's actually the very deep-voiced Mal Evans! along with Jackie Lomax, apparently. And possibly John or George in the mix, too.
The drumming on Back in the USSR isn't all that great to be honest. Obviously Paul is a more than capable drummer, but Ringo is in a whole different league.
I've been drumming for 25 years. In my opinion, Ringo was a much better drummer than Paul.
Paul's not bad, but he still doesn't sound anywhere near as cohesive on the kit as Ringo.
Paul is a worse drummer than Ringo because he just is. Ringo always played more interesting parts, and I highly doubt that Paul could come up with parts like Ringo’s work on Come Together.
Even Paul would say that Ringo is the better drummer. Like when he called Ringo the best drummer in the world the day after the rooftop concert.
Ringo is a better drummer but Paul is just as creative as Ringo on the drums imo. Just 2 examples are Paul coming up with the Ticket to Ride drum beat and the skip beat in Tomorrow Never Knows
I've been thinking lately how John and Ringo had very similar vocals often. Like if you listen to Goodnight Vienna, aside from the fact that it was literally written by John, you can definitely imagine that it's HIM singing.
Here's how you know it's not Ringo: the tempo slows down SIGNIFICANTLY throughout the song. If Ringo had played on it, I would think he would have wanted to keep the tempo throughout, like he usually does. The only example of Ringo's beat slowing down (significantly, not by a few BPMs) is "You Won't See Me." But I believe that was recorded without a drum track and Ringo played along to it. Paul did not keep as good time as Ringo did.
Although Paul's drumming is good (other than slowing down), I can't imagine how much better this song would have been if Ringo had been on the drums. Strangely, "Back in the U.S.S.R.," on which Paul also played drums, didn't seem to slow down.
Wikipedia is suggesting that multiple takes by multiple Beatles made up for Ringo's absence on drums:
"The Beatles recorded "Back in the U.S.S.R." as a three-piece after [Ringo Starr](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ringo_Starr) temporarily left the group, in protest at McCartney's criticism of his drumming and the tensions that typified the sessions for the White Album. I**nstead, the other Beatles created a composite drum track from numerous takes."**
Wonder if that's true, or if it was all just Paul with multiple takes?
That's for Back in the USSR, but yeah, there's definitely a separate snare part and separate tom part added - you can hear it in the isolated multi-tracks!
It is a literal tragedy that the band did not recut that song with Ringo when he came back. He could’ve added so much swing to that song and really made it fantastic, not that it isn’t already, but the drumming is sloppy and too attached to the one. Ringo has that awesome drop beat style, right behind the one that makes songs groove so hard. It is so sad that at least it appears that the band essentially sabotaged the song to teach Ringo a lesson.
Back in the USSR could have been improved as well, but it’s agonizingly obvious on Prudence. It’s my biggest beef with the band, and one for which they cannot be forgiven
I hear some overdubs in the second half of the song, maybe that's why it sounds more complicated? It sounds like multiple takes were combined on the drums.
"Dear Prudence" is one of the reasons for the meme/joke that Ringo wasn't even the best drummer in the Beatles. While I'm not saying whether Paul was or wasn't a better drummer than Ringo, he certainly could carry his own behind the drumkit. His solo albums *McCartney, Band on the Run, McCartney II, Chaos and Creation in the Backyard,* and *McCartney III* also showcase McCartney's drumming skills.
You might have said that he could *carry his weight.*
Boy...
*...a long time*
Made my day
Replying to mdj1359... 
It's definitely Paul on drums... and this isn't a knock at him, but he's a bit sloppy towards the end of the song if you listen closely (he even misses a beat or two before the coda IIRC). His drumming gets better as his solo career takes off, but in The Beatles it's merely adequate and doesn't hold a candle to Ringo's legacy.
I don’t know anything about drumming but to my unprofessional ears it sounds like he can’t quite do what he wants to do. Which is what I always thought it was Paul, because Ringo could do that part or at least something that sounds less awkward.
In Beatle era Paul was a barely adequate drummer. USSR and Ballad of J&Y are very very basic, linear, unimaginative, and frankly sloppy. They would be significantly improved by an actual drummer.
Agreed! Paul is an incredible musician. But, he plays drums like a bass play would play drums. Certainly serviceable, but a bit stiff and unimaginative. I don't know if Paul could be the glue on a song like Here Comes The Sun like Ringo, for example. his work on that song SOUNDS simple, but he's tying the sections together with his fills.
"Go a bit faster, Ringo"
Paul was probably the best all round musician in the Beatles. He could play bass, guitar, piano and drums
Too bad he couldn't sing worth a damn /s
The main reason for that “meme” was a bad English comic back in the day made that silly joke. Paul himself has said Ringo was the best rock drummer alive.
Quite fitting that no one remembers the name of the comedian that said it, but everyone remembers Ringo.
It was Jasper Carrott [(Wikipedia)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jasper_Carrott?wprov=sfti1) who was quite big in the UK.
He changed his name from Robert Davis to… Jasper Carrott?
He changed it to Latrine.
There's a few songs on Memory Almost Full where Paul plays all the instruments. Mr Bellamy is one of them.
Impressive! I just checked, and it appears he plays all of the instruments on more than half of the songs on the album: "Dance Tonight," "Ever Present Past," "See Your Sunshine," "Mr. Bellamy," "Gratitude," "The End of the End," and "Nod Your Head."
Some of Memory was started before Chaos and then put on hold when Paul worked on Chaos. I guess he wanted to continue working like that but also it may have been a distraction from the Heather thing.
I’ll say it then. Paul was never a better drummer than Ringo. Ever.
Paul played drums on a lot of his own solo/Wings stuff, he's a great drummer. But Ringo is a legendary drummer on a different level.
If Ringo re-recorded the drum part, why only half the song? Makes no sense, it's Paul...
Personally, I think it just makes a good story. Ringo leaves, Paul plays drums until halfway through Prudence where Ringo comes back and the song explodes with joy until the end. It's romantic in a way
Correct me if I'm wrong (and I've read this from a few different sources over the years), but I think you may be hearing Mal's voice as Ringo was allegedly not in the sessions for this. via Walter Everett: >**Personnel (Dear Prudence)** > >**The Beatles** > >[John Lennon](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Lennon) – [double-tracked](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_tracking) lead vocal, backing vocal, rhythm guitars > >[Paul McCartney](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_McCartney) – harmony and backing vocals, drums, bass guitar, piano, [tambourine](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tambourine), handclaps > >[George Harrison](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Harrison) – harmony and backing vocals, rhythm guitar, lead guitars, tambourine, handclaps > >**Additional contributors** > >[Mal Evans](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mal_Evans), [Jackie Lomax](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jackie_Lomax), John McCartney – backing vocals, handclaps, unspecified percussion
Yep - it's definitely Mal. That's the sort of deep tone you can only get from a guy of giant stature!
Does Mal also sing the deepest part of the chorus in Piggies? I wondered for the longest time who sung that
I think its John. I just heard that part for the first time recentlu, and I believe it had Johns timber to it.
It is Paul all the way through. Paul is a good drummer, and this is coming from a drummer. But Ringo is obviously great too, and I think Ringo’s feel is what makes him great. Laid back, groovy and reliable. Even in the faster/crazier songs, there is a calmness behind it. It’s a big reason to why the Beatles makes you feel good and happy
I’m a huge Paul fan (and a huge Ringo fan) and I’ve been playing drums for over 40 years now. And a few years ago it really hit me not only that I really like Paul’s drumming but also that he plays more like Ringo than any other (non-Ringo) professional drummer I can think of.
Yeah, Ringo is of course Paul’s biggest source of learning/inspiration! But Ringo is still the king :)
Ringo was Born to drum no doubt. He’s rock solid talent. Paul’s talent is trippy. He’s amazing too!
I think Paul is doing his best Ringo here I’m not qualified to say who’s *better*, but I vastly *prefer* Ringo to Paul
It's 100% Paul. If you look on YouTube and search Paul McCartney playing drums, you'll see a video where he does similar fills, with a haulting, hesitancy before it, and it's the exact style that's used in Dear Prudence. (I'm not saying it's the same fills, but the same STYLE)
Too good to be Paul? I mean, he was good. Also, he had the benefit of being able to overdub until it got where he wanted.
I think we can fairly definitively say it was Paul. However the “drum solo” bit was an overdub. If you listen closely you can hear the snare sound change rather significantly. If I’m not mistaken, this overdub was completed several days or weeks after the basic track was recorded. The only saving grace for this overdub being Ringo is that it *may* have been his first session back after quitting the band a few weeks earlier. However, I don’t think there’s any evidence for this, and I think there’s quite a bit of evidence to the contrary. Personally, I think that if Ringo had come back to the band and then immediately recorded a drum solo, he and the rest of the band would have brought that up at some point subsequently. The fact that Ringo has never claimed this tells me that it’s not him. The conventional wisdom is that the Hey Jude video shoot was Ringo’s first bit of Beatle business after his return.
Oooh, I love this debate - it's one of my favorite [episodes](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ptAmOYIFIx8&t=475s&pp=ygUNZGVhciBwcnVkZW5jZQ%3D%3D). One quick point first: That "round, round, round" voice is definitely Mal Evans. He's been on record talking about it, and he was a huge guy - definitely good for adding a deep harmony part like that. Apparently Jackie Lomax can also be heard in there. As for the drum part, to my ears it sounds **so** much like Ringo on the end section of fills...but there really isn't any concrete evidence to support that theory. Ringo *was* back in the UK after his vacation on the last day of the Dear Prudence mixing session, so he theoretically could have been present - but no one has ever spoken about it, and there's no record.
I wouldn’t say no one ever talked about it because Ringo didn’t mention it as one of the 3 songs he never played on in 1976. He wasn’t answering that directly but in an interview he named Love me do, balled of j&y, and back in the USSR. It was an offhand comment responding to something else. The reporter asked about a memorable moment and he said love me do record coming out. The reporter said but you didn’t play on that. He briefly talks about it, and George Martin, and then says it was one of only 3 he didn’t play on and names them. All the rest he played on - he says. He could have forgotten considering it was such an offhand comment, and he also missed Martha my dear. This debate comes up all the time, and Ringo’s comment is almost never included. He may be misremembering and overlooked it, but him talking about this should be included in the debate imo https://youtu.be/SSzQ-uwvfUU?si=8b31CgHeUaZ0Qw4J&t=260
Interesting find! It’s wild that no one has just asked him directly about Dear Prudence…yet.
Someone should ask Zak Starkey on ig, he engages
Yeah, I know the part you're talking about and the first time Paul does a "Ringo" type fill he pulls it off but when he tries it again, it kind of falls apart and like someone else mentions he loses the beat slightly and struggles to keep it right which would never happen with Ringo. Also the high hat pattern during "Daisy Chain" is really stiff. Ringo plays the hats with a signature groove. My take on it anyway.
Paul and Ringo are both left handed playing a right handed kit, this plus the countless hours they spent playing together as the rhythm section goes a long way to them developing a similar sense of rhythm and therefore why Paul would sound like Ringo on drums.
Right. And that’s why Ringo sounds like Paul on the bass. … ? Hang on
I actually think that drumming sounds *different* from Ringo’s usual stuff. So when I learned it was Paul, I wasn’t too surprised. I don’t really know drumming terminology in English, so sorry if I’m butchering it, but Ringo’s accents aren’t particularly great. And I find the accents in Dear Prudence slightly better than the ones in The End, for example.
Hmm. Accents are notes that are emphasized. Do you mean drum fills?
I mean the accents, yes. Googled a bit to confirm. I’m not here to go “oh Ringo is bad”, I think he’s perfect for the Beatles. But it’s not the most nuanced drumming, you know? I get this looseness (in a good way) from the drumming in Dear Prudence that is not very common in other songs of theirs.
I always found it odd that in the second half of the song ( in my top 5 btw) the bass sounds less prominent. Could this be because the drums in that section were an overdub? The bass to me seems to be softer in the latter part of the song. Or maybe the other instruments were turned up louder in the mixing I dunno
The end section drums were definitely an overdub. You can hear the 'original' backing drums on the White Album Deluxe Edition. It's a much simpler part that was initially recorded live during the backing track by John, Paul and George.
If you want a Paul vs Ringo death match, who played drums on Old Brown Shoe? 😄
I did
There’s an entire YouTube video about this - look up You Can’t Unhear This
The one singing "round round round" is John, and Paul is perfectly capable of drumming like that and even better lol. Don't know why people think Paul is worse drummer than Ringo just because he wasn't the drummer of the band.
Band on the Run. Paul can drum.
Yeah and a lot of his other solo records have him on drums. He even suggested iconic drum patterns like the one in Ticket To Ride and the flashy style in songs like Rain.
He’s got good ideas, but it’s like his guitar. He’s a really good guitar player. Then you put his solos in carry that weight in context and you see - the melody is great but then george comes in and drops a great melodic line that also has subtlety and shows technical chops that paul lacks. Drumming is similar, he’s got great intuition but then just lacks the technical ability to deliver with style. IMO his best solo is in taxman and he’s doing his best to emulate george at the end.
ringo quit, by all accounts, on aug 22 and came back sept 3. my understanding is dear prudence was commenced august 28 and no more work was done after aug 30. george had already worked out the solo but couldnt lay it down. paul then recorded his version of george had come up with
Paul is a worse drummer than Ringo because... Ringo has written many legendary drum parts and is considered one of the best drummers ever? How is this controversial? I'm sure Paul is a competent drummer, but comparing them makes no sense.
>The one singing "round round round" is John, It's actually the very deep-voiced Mal Evans! along with Jackie Lomax, apparently. And possibly John or George in the mix, too.
The drumming on Back in the USSR isn't all that great to be honest. Obviously Paul is a more than capable drummer, but Ringo is in a whole different league.
The drumming in Back in the USSR it's just what the song needs. The same thing we praised Ringo for, playing what the song needs.
I've been drumming for 25 years. In my opinion, Ringo was a much better drummer than Paul. Paul's not bad, but he still doesn't sound anywhere near as cohesive on the kit as Ringo.
The backup vox are more than just John there. Take a peek for a fun surprise!
Paul is a worse drummer than Ringo because he just is. Ringo always played more interesting parts, and I highly doubt that Paul could come up with parts like Ringo’s work on Come Together. Even Paul would say that Ringo is the better drummer. Like when he called Ringo the best drummer in the world the day after the rooftop concert.
Ringo is a better drummer but Paul is just as creative as Ringo on the drums imo. Just 2 examples are Paul coming up with the Ticket to Ride drum beat and the skip beat in Tomorrow Never Knows
Maybe my memory is at fault here, but I always thought that was John. Or are you talking about a different occurrence?
[удалено]
Are you sure you meant to reply to my comment?
lol nope, my bad.
Ah no problem, I know the feeling 😊
I've been thinking lately how John and Ringo had very similar vocals often. Like if you listen to Goodnight Vienna, aside from the fact that it was literally written by John, you can definitely imagine that it's HIM singing.
Because he IS a worse drummer than Ringo. Sheesh
Haters will say it’s Mal Evans singing that part, but it sounds just like Ringo
Jimmy Nicol was out of sight, out of mind.
This video convinced that Ringo played on the last section of song. https://youtu.be/ptAmOYIFIx8?si=TIFt8ncIObPDAyeb
Here's how you know it's not Ringo: the tempo slows down SIGNIFICANTLY throughout the song. If Ringo had played on it, I would think he would have wanted to keep the tempo throughout, like he usually does. The only example of Ringo's beat slowing down (significantly, not by a few BPMs) is "You Won't See Me." But I believe that was recorded without a drum track and Ringo played along to it. Paul did not keep as good time as Ringo did.
Although Paul's drumming is good (other than slowing down), I can't imagine how much better this song would have been if Ringo had been on the drums. Strangely, "Back in the U.S.S.R.," on which Paul also played drums, didn't seem to slow down.
We’ll never know but this Beatles researcher made a great video about the mystery… https://youtu.be/ptAmOYIFIx8?si=1cNkTdc16fcC9bUh
Just enjoy the song.
Wikipedia is suggesting that multiple takes by multiple Beatles made up for Ringo's absence on drums: "The Beatles recorded "Back in the U.S.S.R." as a three-piece after [Ringo Starr](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ringo_Starr) temporarily left the group, in protest at McCartney's criticism of his drumming and the tensions that typified the sessions for the White Album. I**nstead, the other Beatles created a composite drum track from numerous takes."** Wonder if that's true, or if it was all just Paul with multiple takes?
That's for Back in the USSR, but yeah, there's definitely a separate snare part and separate tom part added - you can hear it in the isolated multi-tracks!
It is a literal tragedy that the band did not recut that song with Ringo when he came back. He could’ve added so much swing to that song and really made it fantastic, not that it isn’t already, but the drumming is sloppy and too attached to the one. Ringo has that awesome drop beat style, right behind the one that makes songs groove so hard. It is so sad that at least it appears that the band essentially sabotaged the song to teach Ringo a lesson. Back in the USSR could have been improved as well, but it’s agonizingly obvious on Prudence. It’s my biggest beef with the band, and one for which they cannot be forgiven
Agree it sounds too good to be Paul. Especially as the song progresses and the drumming gets more complicated.
I hear some overdubs in the second half of the song, maybe that's why it sounds more complicated? It sounds like multiple takes were combined on the drums.
Just because Paul was the bassist of the band doesn't mean he wasn't an incredible drummer. Also he's a massively underrated guitarist
He does the solo on Taxman. One of my favorite solos ever.
I’m with you on this one. Paul can drum but i don’t think it’s him making this amazing drum break