Back Off Boogaloo

1972 song by Ringo Starr

"Back Off Boogaloo" is a song by English rock musician Ringo Starr that was released as a non album single in March 1972. Starr's former Beatles bandmate George Harrison produced the recording and helped Starr write the song, although he remained uncredited as a co writer until 2017. Recording took place in London shortly after the pair had appeared together at Harrison's Concert for Bangladesh shows in August 1971. The single was a follow up to Starr's 1971 hit song "It Don't Come Easy" and continued his successful run as a solo artist. "Back Off Boogaloo" peaked at number 2 in Britain and Canada, and number 9 on America's Billboard Hot 100. It remains Starr's highest charting single in the United Kingdom. The title for the song was inspired by English singer songwriter Marc Bolan. Several commentators have interpreted the lyrics as an attack on Paul McCartney, reflecting Starr's disdain for the music McCartney had made as a solo artist over the previous two years. "Back Off Boogaloo" demonstrates the influence of glam rock on Starr, who directed the documentary film Born to Boogie about Bolan's band T. Rex around this time. Described by one biographer as a "high energy in your face rocker", the singer and guitarist with the English glam rock band T. Rex. When discussing the composition on VH1 Storytellers in May 1998, Starr explained: "[Bolan] was an energised guy. He used to speak: 'Back off, boogaloo  ooh you, boogaloo.' 'Do you want some potatoes?' 'Ooh you, boogaloo!'" Starr also recalled having to take the batteries out of his children's toys that night, in order to power a tape recorder and make a recording of the new song. The lyrics to the middle eight of "Back Off Boogaloo" came to Starr while watching London Weekend Television's football show, The Big Match. According to Starr biographer Alan Clayson, "T Rex devotees" claimed that Bolan had ghost written "Back Off Boogaloo". Starr later acknowledged that George Harrison co wrote the song by adding some chords and finishing the melody. As on Starr's 1971 hit single "It Don't Come Easy", Harrison was not credited for his songwriting contribution. Starr originally offered "Back Off Boogaloo" to his fellow Liverpudlian Cilla Black to record, but she declined, hoping instead to record another new Starr–Harrison composition, "Photograph".

Commentators have regularly interpreted the song as an attack by Starr on his former Beatles bandmate Paul McCartney. text=Get yourself together now And give me something tasty Everything you try to do You know it sure sounds wasted. In author Andrew Grant Jackson's interpretation, Starr, having composed few songs in the past, was goading himself to "finally write a 'tasty' song", yet "at the same time, he was probably castigating McCartney". Starr had publicly criticised McCartney and its 1971 follow up, Ram, Rodriguez writes that the mention of "sound[ing] wasted" could also be a reference to McCartney's overindulgence with cannabis.|source= – Starr to Time Out New York, July 2003, acknowledging Harrison's contribution to the song|width=25%|align=right|style=padding:8px;
The same commentators suggest that here Starr could be referring to the 1969 "Paul is dead" rumour. disconsolate after John Lennon had told him and Starr that he wanted a "divorce" from the Beatles. In addition to these supposed messages in "Back Off Boogaloo", observers have viewed the song title as Starr's rebuke to McCartney to abandon his legal stand against the Beatles and Apple Corps, Author Keith Badman writes that "Boogaloo" had "long been cited as Paul's nickname" from his former bandmates Starr, Harrison and Lennon. When tailoring his 1970 composition "I'm the Greatest" for Starr to record on the 1973 album Ringo, Lennon referenced the song title with the lines "Now I'm only thirty two / And all I want to do is boogaloo". The sessions took place at Apple Studio in central London, with Harrison producing, as he had on "It Don't Come Easy". The recording reflects the influence of glam rock on Starr through what authors Chip Madinger and Mark Easter term "its big drum sound and repetitious nature". Rodriguez describes Starr's "martial sounding opening" as a rare "showcase for his own drumming", Starr later said that he incorporated a hook he had come up with for the Beatles song "Get Back" into his drum part on "Back Off Boogaloo". Further overdubs on the track included contributions from three backing vocalists, filming for which Starr had interrupted in order to perform at the Concert for Bangladesh. The song was passed over for inclusion in the film,

Starr produced the track with Voormann. The recording sessions took place at Apple on 18–19 August, Like the film, "Blindman" was not held in high regard by critics. It was Starr's first release since "It Don't Come Easy", a year before. in films such as 200 Motels and Blindman. Further aligning himself with Britain's glam rock movement, Starr made his directorial debut with Born to Boogie, a film starring Bolan that included Starr's footage of a T. Rex concert held at Wembley on 18 March 1972. with starring roles in Count Downe, released in 1974 as Son of Dracula, and That'll Be the Day. The song was a hit in the US, peaked at number 9 on the Billboard Hot 100, and achieved Starr's best position on the UK Singles Chart, where it reached number 2. A promotional film for "Back Off Boogaloo" was shot on 20 March at Lennon's Tittenhurst Park residence while Starr was looking after the property. Referring to the film clip, Jackson writes: "the Frankenstein monster stalks Starr but in the end the two hug and dance together, as thankfully, he and McCartney eventually did, leading to many more collaborations over the next forty years." Re releases for "Back Off Boogaloo" include Starr's 1975 greatest hits album, Blast from Your Past, and, along with "Blindman", as a bonus track on the 1992 reissue of his Goodnight Vienna album. "Back Off Boogaloo" also appeared on his 2007 compilation Photograph: The Very Best of Ringo Starr, the collector's edition of which included the 1972 promotional film.

On release, Chris Welch wrote in Melody Maker: "A Number One hit could easily be in store for the maestro of rock drums. There's a touch of the Marc Bolans in this highly playable rhythmic excursion  It's hypnotic and effective, ideal for jukeboxes and liable to send us all mad by the end of the week." Alan Clayson writes of reviewers criticising "Back Off Boogaloo" for being repetitious, leading Starr to respond in a 1973 interview: "Play me a pop song that isn't." Writing in 1981, NME critic Bob Woffinden commented on Starr's success in establishing himself in the first two years after the Beatles' break up, and said that the single "confirmed that he and Harrison, dark horses both, were the ones who had managed their solo careers more purposefully and intelligently" compared with McCartney and Lennon. Woffinden described "Back Off Boogaloo" as "every bit as ebullient" as "It Don't Come Easy", although "slightly inferior", In a 1974 article for the NME, Charles Shaar Murray highlighted "Back Off Boogaloo" as a "great radio and juke box tune". Among Beatle biographers, Simon Leng terms it "a rocking, soccer crowd chant that suited Starr's talents well", Guitar World editor Damian Fanelli includes the song on his list of Harrison's ten best post Beatles "Guitar Moments", saying of the recording: "the main event is clearly Harrison's slightly wild, wacky – and very bouncy – slide guitar solo, which includes an alternate melody line that's even catchier than the melody Ringo is singing." Andrew Grant Jackson features "Back Off Boogaloo" in his book Still the Greatest: The Essential Solo Beatles Songs. He says that Starr's mood on the track, while short of the rage that American rapper Tupac Shakur vented against his rival Biggie Smalls in "Hit 'Em Up", "no doubt helped make the tune a staple of football and soccer matches". He comments that the song has "been appropriated" by several artists, including the glam metal band Warrant, in their hit single "Cherry Pie", and Franz Ferdinand, in "Take Me Out". The song was produced by Starr's friend, singer Harry Nilsson, and features a musical arrangement by Van Dyke Parks. the remake incorporates lyrics from a number of the band's songs – in this case, "With a Little Help from My Friends", "Help! ", "Lady Madonna", "Good Day Sunshine" and "Baby, You're a Rich Man", as well as Starr's "It Don't Come Easy". In a further reference to his past, the 1981 version of "Back Off Boogaloo" opens with the same guitar riff that Harrison had played on "It Don't Come Easy" ten years before. Starr taped the basic track at Evergreen Recording Studios in Los Angeles on 4 November 1980, with additional recording taking place on 1–5 December at Nassau's Compass Point Studios. Among the large cast of musicians supporting Starr were Nilsson (vocals), Jim Keltner (drums), Jane Getz (piano), Dennis Budimir and Richie Zito (guitars), and a four piece horn section led by saxophonist Jerry Jumonville. Starr overdubbed his vocals on 4 December, four days before the murder of John Lennon, who had been due to record his contributions to Stop and Smell the Roses in January 1981. Contrasting with his success as a solo artist in 1971–73, the album continued Starr's run of commercial and critical failures since 1976. Rodriguez writes that "[m]ost people either love or hate the revamping" of "Back Off Boogaloo". Produced by Starr, which he rediscovered when he and his wife, Barbara Bach, were moving house. Starr recalled his surprise at hearing the tape again: "It's me singing 'Back Off Boogaloo' with this great guitar. I'm thinking who the hell is that playing? Then I realise, I'm on guitar! the reel to reel captures the song coming [through]." The track includes guitar overdubs by Jeff Lynne and Joe Walsh.

Starr has performed "Back Off Boogaloo" in concert with his All Starr Band, beginning with the band's debut tour of North America in July–September 1989. The song was dropped from the concert setlist early in that tour, however, in favour of the 1963 Lennon–McCartney composition "I Wanna Be Your Man". Live versions of "Back Off Boogaloo" have appeared on the multi disc compilation The Anthology So Far (2001) and King Biscuit Flower Hour Presents Ringo & His New All Starr Band (2002). The latter version was recorded during a US tour in August 2001, at which point the All Starr line up was Starr (vocals), Mark Rivera (saxophone), Ian Hunter (guitar), Roger Hodgson and Howard Jones (keyboards), Greg Lake (bass) and Sheila E. (drums). Starr also played the song live with "Ringo and the Roundheads", a band he formed to promote his 1998 studio album Vertical Man. A version recorded on 13 May that year at Sony Music Studios, New York, The personnel on this performance included Starr (vocals), Walsh and Mark Hudson (guitars), Jack Blades (bass) and Simon Kirke (drums). Another live version with the Roundheads, recorded for PBS Television's Soundstage in August 2005, was issued on the album Ringo Starr: Live at Soundstage (2007) and on DVD in 2009.