“John rarely showed his tender side, but my key memories of John are when he was tender, that’s what has remained with me— those moments where he showed himself to be a very generous, loving person.

“I always cite that song as an example of the John beneath the surface that we only saw occasionally… I don’t think John’s version was ever recorded.”

Last year, speaking to Dave Grohl, Sir Ringo said John also wrote a different song for him in 1980, which made the drummer ‘well up’ when he thought of it.

He said: “The interesting thing is this guy Jack Douglas, the producer, brought this track of John’s to me [Grow Old With Me] just this year; I’d never heard it.

“So he’s still in my life. And so it’s on the new album.

“But why he gave me this CD is [because] at the beginning, John says, ‘Oh, that would be great for Richard Starkey.’