The Beatles were famous for a song called When I'm 64. Fab Four drummer Ringo Starr officially surpassed that benchmark yesterday when he turned 65.

"The seventh day of the seventh month," Starr intones in that famous lazy Liverpudlian accent over the phone from L.A. this week in a Canadian exclusive interview with the Sun.

"I don't know if it's a big one," adds Starr, who was plannng to celebrate with just a low-key dinner with his family.

Starr, who has his official residence in Monte Carlo but has homes in L.A. and England, acknowledged that in Canada, his age makes him eligible for senior citizen discounts.

"Not in Monte Carlo. If I come to Canada, I'll be set," he says cheerfully. "I'm in America now, and I think the retirement age is 70. You know, if you want to live on hamburgers..."

Starr rehearsed for and launched his two previous North American tours at Casino Rama in Barrie, but didn't know the plan yet for his next All Starr Band trek. He says he'll head out next summer in support of his just-released new album, Choose Love, and if he starts off again in Barrie that would be fine with him.

"I just say, 'Yes, I'd like to go on tour,' and then other people put it together," says Starr. "So I don't want to say, 'I'll definitely be there', in case I'm not, but I hope I am. We couldn't be better looked after anywhere else. It's really good. (Vice-President of Marketing Larry Gregson) and everybody up there, it's fabulous."

Starr also says he didn't realize that Barrie's Park Place was the location of the Live 8 Canada concert headlined by Neil Young on Saturday.

"They didn't show any of it (on TV) in America, I didn't see any," says Starr, who watched part of the global event from home on TV. "I saw mainly England. Some of America. One Green Day gig in Germany, and Shakira in Paris, that's all I saw. And Neil Young was on, how great is that?"

As for Beatles singer-bassist Paul McCartney opening London Live 8's concert alongside U2 with the Fab Four's Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, Starr says he liked it -- to a point.

"I saw Paul and Bono being fabulous and I saw four stupid guys in Pepper suits," said Starr of the four-man brass section who were dressed as Beatles lookalikes in the legendary colourful band outfits.

"I thought Paul should have worn the suit and Bono and Bob Geldof should have worn one. Like, real people should have worn them. Then it would have been a real statement. Just to have four silly guys in the back there, I thought was silly."

Starr says he wasn't invited to play drums with McCartney for his Live 8 performance, and didn't really want to discuss whether he would have liked to.

"Well, it's too late now. So let's not talk about the past. I was never asked to do it. I would have only done it, if I'd dressed up in me suit," he jokes. "That would have been a big condition on my part."

Starr's embracing of his Beatles past continues on Choose Love, which liberally references Fab Four song titles, lyrics and even guitar riffs throughout, particularly on the title track.

"There's 'The long and winding road is more than a song,' which I thought was a great line," says Starr. "And 'Tomorrow never knows,' was the line of mine that John (Lennon) wrote a song about. So I have no problem using lines like that. They're in a new context. They're not those songs. We're putting it in another context."

Starr has also written a sweetly spiritual song called Oh My Lord, which seems to be his version of George Harrison's My Sweet Lord although the drummer disputes that.

"Because it has the word 'Lord' in it, everybody keeps saying, 'Oh, well it's like George Harrison,' " says Starr before joking, "I don't know what the Baptists are going to say."

Starr says the song came about when he was sitting at his piano and the chords, melody and words, 'Help Me Lord,' came to him.

"We were talking about It Don't Come Easy. George and I wrote that song, and he produced it on me and was trying to throw in Hare Krishna and God and everything and at that time of my life, I would say, 'No, no, no, that's you. I don't sing these songs.' And now I have no problem saying it. You know, people change. You just change on this long and winding road we're on, some things become easier."

Starr played the piano demo of Oh My Lord for Harrison's widow, Olivia.

"I did and she loved it," he says. "She's doing good. I mean, you know, it's been a couple of years now. You'd have to talk to her about how she feels. But I've seen her lately and she's doing better than she was doing. And that's all you can ask for."

And soon Ringo will star in ...

Ringo Starr's new album, Choose Love, is just one of a number of projects he's involved in these days.

He says he and comic book mogul Stan Lee are still working on an original animation series featuring a superhero based on and voiced by Starr.

"We're still having meetings," Starr told the Sun. "I said yes, he said yes. Everything's in place. We're looking for the story. I will be the voice and it's still going on.''

Starr is also involved in the new Cirque du Soleil Las Vegas production based on Beatles songs. It's set to debut in 2006.

"We're part of that. The Cirque du Soleil are putting their talents with the talents of Beatles music. And that's going to open next year as far as I know. We're involved in the mixing of the Beatles music. We all go to EMI where George Martin is mixing it and we tell what we love and what we don't love."