What Does Ringo Starr Scream At The End Of One Version Of Helter Skelter?
As documented by Beatles Bible, it took months before "Helter Skelter" reached its fully realized form, with the first attempts to record the song taking place in July 1968. In September, the Fab Four re-recorded the tune, making it shorter, tighter, and much heavier. In his biography, "Many Years from Now," Paul McCartney recalled those efforts in greater detail. "We got the engineers and [producer] George Martin to hike up the drum sound and really get it as loud and horrible as it could and we played it and said, 'No, still sounds too safe, it's got to get louder and dirtier,'" he told biographer Barry Miles (via Beatles Bible).
Ultimately, the Beatles' attempts to add extra oomph to the drums took their toll on Ringo Starr. Per McCartney, "In the end, you can hear Ringo say, 'I've got blisters on my fingers!' That wasn't a joke put-on: his hands were actually bleeding at the end of the take, he'd been drumming so ferociously."
It was the perfect exclamation to end a song essentially written to outdo The Who and their own unusually heavy track, "I Can See for Miles," which ended up as their only Billboard Top 10 hit. However, it should also be noted that Starr's "I've got blisters on my fingers" doesn't appear on all of the Beatles' recorded versions of "Helter Skelter."
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