Octopus's Garden

• 1. Introduction

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  Octopus's Garden is the second song Ringo Starr ever wrote, and it came to him not in a recording studio but on a boat belonging to comedian Peter Sellers, off the coast of Sardinia. The year was 1968. Starr had ordered fish and chips for lunch and received squid instead. He ate it. He described it as rubbery, said it tasted like chicken. Then the boat's captain changed the direction of the conversation entirely. He told Starr about octopuses: how they travel along the sea bed, gathering stones and shiny objects, arranging them into gardens. Something in that image lodged itself in Starr's mind. What grew from it became one of the most gently beloved songs the Beatles ever recorded. But the story of how it got from that afternoon on the water to a finished track on Abbey Road involves thirty-two takes, a glass of milk, a straw, and a group of four men who, at that particular moment, were barely getting along.

• 2. Written to Escape

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  George Harrison, who helped Starr shape the song, described it as lovely, and noted that it gets deep into the listener's consciousness because it is so peaceful. Harrison added that Starr seemed to be writing cosmic songs without even realising it. What Harrison left implicit, Starr later said plainly: the song grew out of a desire to escape the mounting hostility inside the Beatles. Starr would admit that he had just wanted to be under the sea too. The garden beneath the waves was not only a charming image. It was a refuge. Starr's wish to hide from the tension surrounding him shaped the emotional core of the song, and that undercurrent of longing for quiet makes Harrison's description of the song as peaceful carry an extra weight.

• 3. Thirty-Two Takes

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  The basic instrumental track was recorded on the 26th of April 1969. The lineup that day was Harrison and Lennon on electric guitars, McCartney on bass, and Starr on drums. Starr also laid down a temporary guide vocal. That guide vocal, featuring Starr singing the first verse three times, became Take 2 of the recording. It survives as Track 14 on Disc 2 of Anthology 3. George Martin was absent from the session. In his absence, the Beatles themselves were listed as producer, with Martin's apprentice Chris Thomas present in the control room. The band worked through thirty-two takes before they were satisfied with the track. The finished backing vocals by McCartney and Harrison during the guitar solo were put through compressors and limiters, though Alan Parsons later suggested that the gurgling sound those vocals produce was more likely the result of a tremolo effect from a guitar amplifier. Harrison also added something simpler: bubbles, created by blowing through a straw into a glass of milk, at Starr's request.

• 4. A Helping Hand from Harrison

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  Harrison's contribution to the song went beyond studio effects. He provided uncredited assistance with the chord changes during the song's development. Footage of Harrison helping Starr work the song out on piano, with Lennon later joining on drums, appeared in two documentaries made years apart: Let It Be, released in 1970, and The Beatles: Get Back, released in 2021. Both films used the same footage. Harrison was careful not to claim the song for himself. When he spoke about it, his framing was clear and generous. He called it Ringo's song. The song's final personnel list, according to Kevin Howlett and Brooke Halpin, credits Starr with double-tracked lead vocals, drums, and percussion; Lennon on rhythm guitar; McCartney on backing vocals, bass guitar, and piano; and Harrison on backing vocals, lead guitar, and the bubbling effects he created with a straw and a glass of milk.

• 5. Life After Abbey Road

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  Octopus's Garden was the last Beatles song released featuring Starr on lead vocals. It did not stay frozen in 1969. In 2006, the song was remixed for the Beatles album Love, a project built from remixes of classic Beatles recordings. The Love version opens with Starr's vocals set against the orchestration from Good Night, then shifts into the original instrumental backing on the line "I'd ask my friends...", with fragments of Yellow Submarine woven into the background. During the guitar solo, the drum track gives way to that of Lovely Rita, and the remix closes with the opening guitar riff from Sun King. The Muppets also took up the song. Jim Henson's characters performed three video cover versions: on Sesame Street Episode 19 in 1969, on The Ed Sullivan Show in March 1970, and on The Muppet Show Episode 312 in 1978, where it was performed by Kermit the Frog, his nephew Robin the Frog, and Miss Piggy. Oasis and Noel Gallagher have drawn on the song's lyrics as well. The phrase "I'd like to be under the sea" appears in the refrain of one of Oasis's most popular B-sides, Take Me Away, and the chorus refrain of Octopus's Garden can be heard roughly forty seconds from the end of Oasis's The Masterplan. The band also regularly used the same refrain to close live performances of their 1994 single Whatever.