I was doing a search here for info about Don't Pass Me By and stumbled upon this old topic so thought I'd resurrect it rather than start a new one ....
I knew that The Beatles had discussed Don't Pass Me By on one of their BBC Radio programmes in 1964 and I was just wondering if Ringo had finished writing it then and it got "passed by" until 1968, or if it took him four years to finish writing it.
From the info in the thread above it seems like the song was indeed finished by mid-1964 but wasn't considered good enough for an album at the time. It was only when they were recording the White Album that they decided to give it a go.
They should have done DPMB instead of the abysmal Honey Don't - neither of them is a great song but at least DPMB is an original.
I was also surprised to read that What Goes On was around in 1963 - I never knew that!