Why Ringo is hated in Liverpool

In 2008, Liverpool celebrated being one of the cities named "Capital of Culture" and a big celebration was held, one which included Ringo Starr coming home to perform and do some bits for the city. Unfortunately, a few days after the celebrations Ringo was a guest at the Jonathan Ross Show, and his comments about Liverpool on that show offended Liverpudlians. You can watch his appearance on the show on the clip presented here:



Unlike Paul McCartney, Ringo no longer has any living relatives remaining in Liverpool, which means he no longer has any current connection to the city - and a reason to go there. Which is likely to have been on his mind when he said that he wouldn't want to live there any more. After that show, a lot of people in Liverpool turned their backs on the drummer, and even now, otherwise intelligent people are referring to Ringo as "the lucky guy who managed to join the Beatles just as fame struck". This is really a sorry state, and as someone who both loves Liverpool (I just came back from spending this week there), and who has more than just a tad of knowledge about the Beatles, I'm not happy with this situation. It was taken wrong, and now it's all this.

Still, Ringo returned to Liverpool in 2011, playing at the Empire Theatre, where the Beatles also held a few concerts in the sixties. Sadly, people who would have enjoyed the show didn't turn up, because they were still angry with Ringo. The local newspaper Liverpool Echo had a commentary titled "We are a city that forgives", unfortunately this was not the case.

Ringo has a lot of love for Liverpool, and his last three solo albums have all had a song about Liverpool on them.

• Liverpool 8 on "Liverpool 8"
• The Other Side of Liverpool on "Y Not"
• In Liverpool on "Ringo 2012"

There's no need for me to justify Ringo's place in the Beatles, a world of drummers have been thankful for what he taught them and have openly paid tribute to him many times over the years, he was easily the most popular Beatle in the USA, and John Lennon has testified that Ringo would have made it to stardom even without the Beatles. When the Beatles were over, Ringo's single "It Don't Come Easy" was a big hit, outselling his fellow former-Beatles' singles at the time: John Lennon's "Power to the People", Paul McCartney's "Another Day" and George Harrison's "Bangla Desh". In 2011, Rolling Stone readers named Ringo Starr the fifth-greatest drummer of all time. And no, John Lennon (who by the way is the hero the city of Liverpool most worships, over all the three other guys) never said anything about Ringo not being the greatest drummer in the Beatles. Lennon never had anything but praise for his drummer, and made use of him on his first solo albums.