Vertical Man is the eleventh studio album by Ringo Starr, issued in 1998. The album served as Starr's attempt at a commercial comeback following the success of The Beatles Anthology project. Starr enlisted the help of many of his musician friends in making Vertical Man, including Scott Weiland, Brian Wilson, Alanis Morissette, Ozzy Osbourne, Tom Petty, Joe Walsh, Timothy B. Schmit, Steven Tyler, and his former Beatles bandmates Paul McCartney and George Harrison. Beatles engineer Geoff Emerick mixed the tracks, and Starr and Mark Hudson served as producers.

Ringo Starr met songwriter Dean Grakal at a party on New Year's Eve 1996, during which the pair had a discussion about songwriting, with Grakal proposing that they form a team with Mark Hudson, whom Starr had met years prior while Starr was working on Time Takes Time (1992). Starr spoke of the writing process in an interview with Billboard magazine: "This is the first time I've really been involved [in my record]. Whereas before, I'd just sort of pick out other people's songs or songs other people had written that I thought were vaguely trying to say what I would have liked to say, on this, we're really trying to say what I want to say, thank you."

In February 1997, Hudson and Grakal visited Starr in his Beverly Hills residence for a songwriting session. The result of this meeting was a song called "My Love", which was promptly renamed "Everyday" after Starr commented that McCartney had already used the title. The song was demoed under that name by Starr, Hudson, Grakal, and guitarist Steve Dudas. Happy with this session, the quartet followed it up with more recordings the following month, at Los Angeles's Whatinthewhatthe? Studios. There the musicians recorded two tracks: "Mr. Double-It-Up" and "One", the latter of which, per Grakal's lyric sheet, was originally called "All It Takes Is One". For these sessions, Starr played the drum set he had used during his time with The Beatles. In mid-to-late April, as Starr began rehearsals for an upcoming tour, Starr and Hudson worked on Vertical Man. Before embarking on the tour (which would begin on 28 April), Starr recorded "I'll Be Fine Anywhere". After the tour had finished on 8 June, Starr went on holiday, and returned in July. Recording for the album restarted in the same month, on 20 July, with Starr playing with The Roundheads as his backing band.

We had this open-door policy, whereby if you dropped by while we were recording, you were going to get asked to be on the record.

Starr and the Roundheads recorded the tracks "What in the... World", "La De Da", and "Mindfield" on 20 July at Whatinthewhatthe? Studios. Starr added vocals to "What in the... World" on 28 July, and two days later to "Without Understanding". On 31 July, Joe Walsh showed up at Whatinthewhatthe? Studios and added guitar parts to "What in the... World", "La De Da" and "Mindfield". The next day, Starr re-recorded his "Without Understanding" vocal. On 5 August, the track "Old Country Song" (soon to be re-titled as "Good News") was recorded. The bass track to "Good News" was recorded two days later, by Lee Rocker. Starr and Hudson then flew to Europe at the end of August.

On 29 September, at McCartney's The Mill studio, McCartney, Starr, Hudson, Emerick and Paul Wright worked on the track "La De Da", which McCartney contributed bass and backing vocals to. This session was filmed by Grakal, and excerpts were later featured in the music video for the song. Also recorded was a new bass track for "What in the... World"— replacing the placeholder bass track from a July session. Upon hearing a playback of the track, McCartney remarked "Whoo ... Rich! Sounds kinda Beatle-ish!" to which Starr replied "I know! That's what I said to Mark months ago". McCartney, now looking at Starr, told him "You are a fucking Beatle!" On 15 October, the same day Starr was in Paris to watch McCartney's daughter Stella's fashion show, string overdubs were added on to "I'm Yours" and "King of Broken Hearts" at AIR Studios, located in London. Starr returned to Los Angeles on 1 November to add overdubs to the latest recorded material, and on 3 November, he recorded "I Was Walkin'". On 4 November, "The Puppet Song" was recorded. The song had originated from a comment by Starr ("Put the puppet to bed"), and would be renamed "Puppet". On 6 November, "Sometimes" was recorded, which contained a riff taken from Ringo's Rotogravure's (1976) "Cryin'".

I've always loved that song. I didn't get to play on the first one (1962) – I'll show the bastards!

On 7 November, Jeff Baxter overdubbed a steel guitar onto "One" and "Sometimes". On the same day, Jim Cox added keyboard overdubs to several songs; Starr originally wanted Billy Preston to play the keyboards, but he was in jail at the time. On 11 November at Village Recorder Studios, Baxter also added keyboards to three tracks: "I Was Walkin'", "La De Da" and "Sometimes". Overdubs were added to a number of tracks the following day at the same studio. On 13 November, an ensemble of 45 people—consisting of Starr's friends and family—gathered at Village Recorder Studios to record backing vocals to the track "La De Da". The following day, both Schmit and Dave Gibbs added backing vocals to "Puppet" and "Sometimes". On 17 November, Tyler flew from Amsterdam to Los Angeles to overdub harmonica to both "I Was Walkin'" and a re-make of "Love Me Do".