Written by: Richard Starkey, Ronnie Wood
Recorded: 23, 24 September 1980
Producers: Ringo Starr, Ronnie Wood
Engineer: Dee Robb
Released: 27 October 1981 (US), 20 November 1981 (UK)
Available on:
Stop And Smell The Roses
Personnel
Ringo Starr: vocals, drums
Ron Wood: guitar, acoustic bass guitar, saxophone, vocals
Greg Mathieson, Joe Sample: piano
Wilton Felder: bass
‘Dead Giveaway’ is the sixth song on Ringo Starr’s eighth solo album, 1981’s Stop And Smell The Roses.
The song was co-written and co-produced by Starr and The Rolling Stones’ Ronnie Wood. Unusually, among the instruments played by Wood on the song was a saxophone.
Towards the end of the song, Starr can be heard exclaiming “Somebody knocking at the door”. This could have been a reference to Paul McCartney and Wings’ 1976 song ‘Let ’Em In’, which Starr quoted again in 2003’s ‘English Garden’.
‘Dead Giveaway’ was recorded at LA’s Cherokee Recording Studios on 23 and 24 September 1980. Starr and Wood also recorded several songs which didn’t make it onto Stop And Smell The Roses: ‘Brandy’, ‘Don’t Blame It On Me’, and a demo entitled ‘I Don’t Believe You’.
Starr’s original version of the album, Can’t Fight Lightning, contained a version of ‘Dead Giveaway’ lasting 5:20. It was edited for a further iteration of the rejected album, and the Stop And Smell The Roses version was a different edit of the full version lasting 4:29.