Richard Starkey…Ringo Star turns 80 today. He wrote The Beatles’ song “Octopus’s Garden” on a trip to Sardinia, Italy after a chat with the captain of his boat about how octopuses build gardens. The popular album track was the second song Ringo wrote for The Beatles and the last song he sang for them.
”I went to Sardinia. And I knew Peter Sellers and he had a boat and somehow he knew I was going — ‘Use my boat,’ which we did. And I ended just hanging out with the captain talking, and we were talking about octopus and he actually was telling me that they build these gardens. Octopuses go around the sea bed finding shiny things — nice stones — and they put ‘em around. And I just thought, ‘Well, this is the happiest thing I’ve ever heard.’ And I had me guitar with me, I played three chords and that’s how it happened.”
