Lost Your Hair
As a child born at the end of 1962, I caught the dying gasp of the Beatles run as a band. My family bought a copy of the 45 RPM single Let it Be, released in 1970. I suppose by that time, the band was already a thing of the past, but my older brothers (by one and two years) and I sat in front of the family hi-fi and listened to it repeatedly. The flip side was You Know My Name (Look Up the Number), which, as a music obsessed adult, now strikes me as poorly executed filler, but as a child, it was simply weird, so we never flipped the record over for a break. We just listened to Let It Be and Let It Be and Let It Be.
For the next six years. I immersed myself in popular music. I latched onto the Beach Boys’ Endless Summer, Elton John’s Goodbye Yellow Brick Road, and much of the music that I heard on the radio, Sweet’s Ballroom Blitz, R. Dean Taylor’s Indiana Wants Me, Zeppelin’s Black Dog, etc. Like most young listeners, I gravitated towards whatever songs my preteen classmates played. During that period the Beatles music was everywhere.
For Christmas one year, my mother bought me what is colloquially known as the Beatles Red Album, the hits from 1962-1966. With that album as my launch pad, I sought out other early Beatles compilations, my favorite being Rock ‘n’ Roll Music which I listened to nonstop until my cassette tape stretched out and broke. My mother also bought my brother the Blue Album, hits from 1967-1970. This album spent as much time on the family stereo as the Red Album.
In ninth grade, I fell in with a group of stoners. We spent our afternoons smoking pot, quoting Monty Python, and listening to the Beatles. Being high, we preferred the band’s later, more psychedelic music. I purchased Revolver, Sgt. Pepper, Magical Mystery Tour, The White Album and Abbey Road. I spent countless hours closeted in my bedroom listening to those five albums. I can still, fifty years later, sing along with each LP from beginning to end. The songs on those five Beatles albums remain my favorite to this day.
I give this background as testimony to prove that I’m not a casual Beatles fan. By the end of high school, I identified as a Superfan. Over the decades, I’ve branched out and enjoy most musical genres, but the Beatles still show up annually on my Spotify list of top artists. So, what’s my favorite Beatles song? Don’t Pass Me By, written and sung by Ringo Starr on The White Album.
This morning, for the zillionth time, I read yet another ARTICLE trashing Ringo Starr in general and Don’t Pass Me By specifically. You might ask why Far Out Magazine, a UK pop culture website is reviewing a fifty-seven-year-old song, a song almost twice as old as half the people in the world. I’m not sure. People love to hate on this song. And it’s high time for me to speak up, cuz I’m f*cking sick of it.
Don’t Pass Me By is often cited for its simplicity, tucked in the middle of a double album exalted for its experimental tracks. But as a reminder, the Beatles made their name with simple songs like She Loves You Yeah, Yeah, Yeah? Yes, Don’t Pass Me By lacks the complexity, lyricalness, and depth of many Beatles songs, but it might very well be the most fun. No other song by the Beatles, or maybe any other band I know of, makes me want to sing along like Don’t Pass Me By.
The title of the article I read: “Is ‘you were in a car crash, and you lost your hair’ the worst lyric the Beatles ever wrote?” by Reuben Cross. It’s true, the song does include this unfortunate line:
I’m sorry that I doubted you, I was so unfair
You were in a car crash, and you lost your hair
You said that you would be late, about an hour or two
I said that’s alright, I’m waiting here, just waiting to hear from you
But the line isn’t the only complaint Cross has with the song. In his article, before he starts digging into this one lyric, he slams the backing track: “The honky-tonk piano and bluegrass violins are grating to say the least.” I disagree, Mr. Cross. The bluegrass flair is what makes the song amazing. In fact, as a one-time Beatles Superfan, it’s my opinion that those violins might be the most charming aspect of the entire White Album.
In the second to last paragraph, Cross briefly addresses the lost your hair line “at no other point does (Starr) mention the person he is pining over suffering from traumatic alopecia.” I don’t know if Cross is being willfully ignorant, trying to be funny, or is just stupid, but ‘lost your hair’ is clearly an idiom that was in usage when the song was written—much like ‘lost your mind’ or ‘lost your shit.’
Regardless, the White Album easily has worse lyrics. The very next song on the album goes like this (repeated three times, and that’s the whole song):
Why don’t we d-do it in the road?
Why don’t we do it in the road?
Why don’t we do it in the road? Hmm
Why don’t we do it in the road?
No one will be watching us
Why don’t we do it in the road?
Much better? Absolutely, people say, because the song was written by Paul McCartney. The hate directed towards Don’t Pass Me By is part of a snobbishness against Ringo Starr so many rock critics have embraced over the decades. Three of the Beatles were touched by the divine. George Harrison, McCartney and John Lennon all channeled something otherworldly during their stint with the Beatles. Ringo Starr, critics say lucked into the mix.
That’s bullshit. Starr was a solid drummer, and the fab four finally clicked when he joined the band. He just might be the mysterious force that corralled those three supernovas together into a cohesive unit that worked. Starr only wrote a couple of songs for the Beatles, and Don’t Pass Me By is easily the best. Give my song a break, before I lose my hair.
