In the Beatles’ later years, the band’s members took turns quitting — if only briefly. With George Harrison emerging as a songwriter on par with the iconic duo of John Lennon and Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr felt left out and decided to quit. “I went to see John … [and] I said, ‘I’m leaving the group because I’m not playing well and I feel unloved and out of it, and you three are really close.’ And John said, ‘I thought it was you three!'” Starr is quoted as saying in “The Beatles Anthology” (via Far Out magazine). “So then I went over to Paul’s and knocked on his door. I said the same thing … And Paul said, ‘I thought it was you three!'”

According to The Beatles Bible, Starr left during an argumentative recording session for McCartney’s “Back in the U.S.S.R.” According to Far Out, Starr’s departure was fueled in part by endless notes from McCartney regarding a tom-tom part. McCartney was left playing the drums in Starr’s place, per This Day in Music.

After a family vacation to the Mediterranean island of Sardinia, Starr returned to the Beatles’ recording studio refreshed. “I got a telegram saying, ‘You’re the best rock ‘n’ roll drummer in the world. Come on home, we love you,'” Starr said, per “Anthology” (via The Beatles Bible). “And so I came back. We all needed that little shake-up.”

Ringo Starr’s first wife, Maureen Cox, died in December 1994 due to complications from a treatment for leukemia, according to The Seattle Times. In 1995, Paul McCartney wrote the song “Little Willow,” a tribute to Cox which appeared on the musician’s 1997 album “Flaming Pie.” “‘Little Willow’ was written after Paul learned of the death of a dear friend,” read the album’s liner notes. “He created the song not only as an immediate personal response to the sadness but, hopefully, as a salve for his late friend’s children.” The liner notes also included a quote from McCartney: “I wanted to somehow convey how much I thought of her. For her and her kids. It certainly is heartfelt, and I hope it will help a bit.”

McCartney called the song “Little Willow” to make it more universal. “I know I was very affected by Maureen’s death, and again I remember just going into a room and putting those sentiments into that song,” he said (via The Paul McCartney Project). “The sort of fragility of life is in that song. But it wasn’t called ‘Maureen’, it was called ‘Little Willow’. I always prefer to conjure up some story or tale or some bit of imagination around something, because then I can get my emotions out but it’s not quite as raw.”

The song was later included on a tribute album to Princess Diana, who died in August 1997.

During a 2020 interview on The Howard Stern Show, Stern asked Paul McCartney who he thought was “the greatest drummer in rock ‘n’ roll history.” “I’d go Ringo top — he’s something else,” McCartney replied. “Second, I’d go Bonzo [Led Zeppelin’s John Bonham]. And third, [the Who’s] Keith Moon. I mean, that’s mine. I’m going from that generation. Those are pretty good drummers, those boys.”

The Beatles played their first show with Ringo Starr on drums in 1962 at the Cavern Club in Liverpool, England. “The first few minutes that Ringo is playing, I look to the left at George and to the right to John, and we didn’t say a word, but I remember thinking, ‘Sh*t, this is amazing,'” McCartney told Rolling Stone in 2015. “Look, I love Led Zeppelin, but you watch them playing and you can see them looking back at John Bonham, like, ‘What the hell are you doing — this is the beat.’ You could turn your back on Ringo and never have to worry. He both gave you security and you knew he was going to nail it.”

The Beatles were inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 1988, the same year as fellow legends Bob Dylan and the Beach Boys, according to the Hall of Fame website. John Lennon was posthumously inducted as a solo artist by Paul McCartney in 1994. McCartney was inducted himself five years later, in 1999, and George Harrison was inducted posthumously in 2004.

One night, McCartney was having dinner with former The Band guitarist Robbie Robertson when the latter pointed out that Ringo Starr had not been inducted into the Hall of Fame as an individual artist. According to Rolling Stone, even Beatles manager Brian Epstein was in the Hall of Fame by then. McCartney set out to right the wrong. “I said, ‘Let me see what I can do,’ ” McCartney told Rolling Stone. “And I talked to Bruce Springsteen and I talked to Dave Grohl, and they both thought he should be in. And I said I’d do the induction. That took care of it.”

“Paul said he’s going to do the Hall of Fame speech,” Starr told the magazine, adding as a joke, “I really think I’m doing it just to give Paul a night out. He likes to keep busy.” In 2015, McCartney inducted Starr as an individual artist and a recipient of an Award for Musical Excellence.

As the last surviving members of the Beatles, Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr have collaborated on a number of projects and Beatles tributes, including recordings and live performances. In 2019, the pair collaborated on a recording of the song “Grow Old With Me,” which John Lennon wrote in 1980 before he was fatally shot, per The Guardian. McCartney also contributed his vocals and bass playing to two tracks on Starr’s 2017 album “Give More Love” and his 2020 track “Here’s To The Nights.” According to People, the pair have been collaborating as solo artists for around 25 years, starting with McCartney’s 1997 song “Beautiful Night.”

“To sit down with Ringo is always a great thing,” McCartney told GQ in 2020. “It’s always worthwhile. It’s always fun … I’m thinking, ‘My God, you know the memories across this ten yard gap here, him on the drums and me on the bass, the lifetime that’s going on here.’ So, you know, it’s a sort of magic. And he and I these days get quite emotional about it, because we should. We ought to. It’s a bloody emotional thing, the years, if nothing else.”