Ringo Starr – “Thankful” (Feat. Alison Krauss)

Everyone is going country these days. It’s a whole thing. Country music is doing better than any other genre on the American charts, and pop stars are falling all over each other to make country records. I guess you could call Ringo Starr a pop star; he has two #1 hits on the Hot 100, after all. (We’re talking about solo-artist Ringo Starr. That’s how much American missed the Beatles in the ’70s: All four of them had multiple #1 hits as solo artists.) So the news that 84-year-old Ringo had got with T Bone Burnett to make a country record called Look Up wasn’t exactly shocking. But this is nothing new for Ringo Starr. He’s been a country guy for a long time.

Consider: In 1965, the Beatles covered Buck Owens’ “Act Naturally” on the B-side to their “Yesterday” single, and Ringo Starr sang lead. In 1970, fresh off of the Beatles’ breakup, Starr flew to Nashville and made the solo country album Beaucoups Of Blues. He’s been in that zone for decades! With all that in mind, it’s not all that surprising to hear Starr get together with roots legend Alison Krauss to sing “Thankful,” a country song about being thankful. Here’s what he says about it:

I love this track. I wrote it with my producer and engineer Bruce Sugar, and I feel we put an LA country sound to it. For the lyrics, I always like to focus on the positive, and for this song in particular, about what we can be thankful for. I hope it brings you some joy and peace and love.

It’s kind of nice! It’s also pretty much exactly what you’re imagining. Listen below.

Look Up is out 1/10 on Lost Highway/Roccabella/UMG Nashville.