“The End” features the only drum solo recorded by Ringo with the Beatles and comes in at a succinct 25 seconds.
He disliked solos, preferring to cater drum work to whoever sang in a particular performance.
His solo on “The End” was recorded with twelve microphones around his drum kit. Ringo said he copied part of Ron Bushy’s drumming from the Iron Butterfly track “In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida”.
The take in which Ringo performed the solo originally had guitar and tambourine accompaniment, but the other instruments were muted during mixing, to heighten the effect of his drum solo.
“Ringo would never do drum solos,” Paul said.
“He hated drummers who did lengthy drum solos. We all did. And when he joined the Beatles we said, ‘Ah, what about drum solos then?’ and he said, ‘I hate ’em!’ We said, ‘Great! We love you!’ And so he would never do them. But because of this medley I said, ‘Well, a token solo?’ and he really dug his heels in and didn’t want to do it.”
“I don’t think he’s done one since,” said Paul.
‘The End’ is the track which is Ringo’s stated favorite piece of The Beatles work. It sits proudly with a clear distinction from the rest of the songs on the Abbey Road side two medley and is deliberately unfinished and determinedly abstract.
