John Lennon’s Family Share Last Photo Of The Former Beatle And Ringo Starr
Words by Riley Fitzgerald
Graphic by Press
The last known photo of John Lennon and Ringo Starr, taken less than a month before John’s tragic death in 1980, has been shared by the Beatle‘s Instagram.
Accompanying the image as an extract from a 1981 interview where Starr recounts the pair’s last meeting.
“I saw him on the 15th of November,” the drummer recounts. “I was staying at The Plaza. We went over to New York for a while. And I hadn’t seen him for a while because, you know, we see each other wherever we are. And he came over with Yoko for an hour and we had such a great time because they stayed five hours.”
“And it didn’t matter that it was a year between we didn’t see each other,” he continued, “it was always fine when we did, but it was a particularly great time that we, that I had, anyway… Oh, man, they were happy. They were two people in one.‘”
Still deeply affected by his friend’s death Starr, along with Paul McCartney, covered Lennon’s ‘Grow Old With Me’ on 2019 album What’s My Name?.
Starr also recalled hearing news of John’s death in a recent interview of Rolling Stone.
“When John went, I was in the Bahamas,” he recounted. “I was getting a phone call from my stepkids in L.A. saying, ‘Something’s happened to John.’ And then they called and said, ‘John’s dead.’ And I didn’t know what to do. And I still well up that some bastard shot him. But I just said, ‘We’ve got to get a plane.’ We got a plane to New York, and you don’t know what you can do. We went to the apartment. ‘Anything we can do?’ And Yoko just said, ‘Well, you just play with Sean. Keep Sean busy.’ And that’s what we did. That’s what you think: ‘What do you do now?’”
Despite the acrimony of the Beatles’ breakup, John and Rongo always remained on good terms.
“I think Ringo’s drumming is underrated in the same way that Paul’s bass playing is underrated,” John once remarked. “Paul and Ringo stand up anywhere with any of the rock musicians.”
