Bass intro to "You're So Vain"

[bscenefilms]

Cool. Will try it tonight after work

 

[Skitch it!]

From what I hear it's an A Minor chord raked descending for the triplet landing back on barred A......... Bar across on the 5th on the E, little finger on the 7th fret of the D string, ring finger on 7th fret of the A string........hit the barred (5th fret) A on the E then rake down through ... the barred 5th fret on the G string (C), the 7th fingered fret on the D string as above (A) and the 7th fingered fret on the A string (E) back to barred A on the E string, keep everything held down like a chord but lift slightly by rocking your left hand in sequence with the rake for a little muting...(too much sustain won't quite get the feel) until you lift the barre to mute for the stop of the sequence, try alternating picking fingers after each rakedown (in your way) for a flamenco feel, hope it helps.

 

[EriktheRed]

Well, Captain Bob's tab works for me.


Anybody have the WHOLE song?

 

[Texx010]

In this video starting at the 3:14 mark, Carly Simon is discussing how Klaus came up with the bass intro, and then it shows Klaus himself playing it. Klaus Voormann is visiting Carly Simon in her home and reminiscing.

Klaus Voormann comes to visit Carly Simon - YouTube

 

[froghat]

Reanimating a dead thread - for anyone who is still interested, I cut out the riff from Simon's original version and slowed it to 50% speed. Just a simple Am chord fingerpicked up and down. From the Smithsonian video, it looks like Klaus uses his thumb on the low A (played on the E string), and then index, middle, and ring fingers on the three strings above. No raking by Klaus.

 

[MrBass617]

Start at about 3 minutes. Klaus Voorman shows how it is played himself. 3:20

 

[JimK]

Cool...and Carly's description was, um,

 

[Texx010]

Start at about 3 minutes. Klaus Voorman shows how it is played himself. 3:20

Same video I posted above over five years ago. Youtube now has an option to change the playback speed. It can be slowed down to 25% beginning at 3:23 to see and hear him more clearly.

 

[corinpills]

Klaus is such an interesting character in bass history. He's really a graphic artist who took up bass because he saw the Beatles playing frantic rock and roll in Hamburg and fell in love with it and them. It was even briefly considered that he might join the band when Stuart lost interest in bass, but Paul took it over. Later, he moved to London and stayed with George as a mate and bungled his way into a band called Paddy, Klaus & Gibson that ha a decent couple of singles and then into the bass slot with Manfred Mann, which was a pretty hot singles band in the UK at that time. He's the only bass player to play on solo albums by George, Ringo and John post Beatles and through that he ended up on Harry Nilsson's records. That's him playing the crazy de-tuned bass on "Jump Into The Fire: in the helicopter scene in Goodfellas. He's a pretty humble guy for someone who has played on so many classic albums.