Walk With You

Written by: Richard Starkey, Van Dyke Parks
Recorded: 2009
Producers: Ringo Starr, Bruce Sugar

Released: 12 January 2010

Available on:
Y Not

Personnel

Ringo Starr: vocals, drums, percussion
Paul McCartney: bass guitar, vocals
Steve Dudas: electric guitar
Bruce Sugar: keyboards
Ann Marie Calhoun: violin

‘Walk With You’ is the fourth song on Ringo Starr’s 16th solo studio album, 2010’s Y Not.

The song was co-written by Starr and Van Dyke Parks.

We did these tracks, and I had this track, and it was actually… there were three things I had at the going in. I had ‘As long as I’m doing it, you can’t do it wrong’. I had ‘Who’s Your Daddy’, this was another chorus, and I had ‘When I walk with you, when I talk to you, everything will be fine’. And I thought it’d be like the sort of gospelly song on the record. And I called Van Dyke Parks. Known Van Dyke since we were children. And I said, ‘I’ve got this song,’ when he came over. It’s like, ‘I wanna write the God song.’ He said, ‘Oh, I don’t write about God.’ [laughs] So I said OK, so it’s actually about relationships, but once I said, ‘No man’s an island who has been in love,’ the top line, he said, ‘That’s great! Let’s go!’ And between us we finished the song.

‘Walk With You’ features Paul McCartney on bass guitar and backing vocals.

I called Paul, because he was coming to LA, and when he heard ‘Walk With You’ he wanted to sing on it. So he sang that part. So OK, fine.

Paul was doing the Grammys, so he came over and played bass on ‘Peace Dream’, and then I was playing him this track, and he goes,’Give me a pair of cans.’ And he went over to the mic. And he just invented that, ‘When I walk with you,’ he follows on. That was all Paul McCartney. There could be nothing better.

He’s not in unison, he’s not harmonising with me, he’s harmonising, but it makes it bigger. It makes it fuller. So we have to thank Paul for that. It is like a conversation, but that was his idea, to do it that one beat behind me. That’s why he’s a genius.

‘Walk With You’ was the only single taken from Y Not. It was released on 22 December 2009

It was also Starr’s song on the iTunes four-song Beatles EP 4: John Paul George Ringo, released on 23 September 2014. The other songs were ‘Love’ by John Lennon, ‘Call Me Back Again’ by Wings, and ‘Let It Down’ by George Harrison.