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Paul McCartney

#63
Paul is the man , here is a list of my bass favourites.

.All my loving
.The word
.Taxman
.With a little help from my friends
.Lovely Rita
.Baby you're a rich man
.Everybodys got something to hide except me and my monkey
.Why dont we do it in the road
.Something
.I want you.
.You never give me your money.
.She came in through the bathroom window
.Rain
.Mrs Vandebilt.
.Band on the run.
.My Brave Face

I could probably name a dozen more but those are the ones that come to mind
 
#64
I'm surprised nobody's mentioned the bassline from I'm Only Sleeping. Everytime I play it I hear something new. My fave PM bass line ever.

Anyway, I really got into the Beatles in middle school around the time that the Anthology came out. Paul's bass lines always seemed to stand out in later years. I was unbelievably influenced by the bass line in "all you need is love", "rain", and others where the bass, though simple sounding, just stood out. His tone deserves even more recognition.

Nowhere Man is a great line too and Eight Days a Week.
 
#65
I think McCartney's a very good bass player. When you first start listening to the earlier stuff you think, good sound and very subtle but full. Then you start listening to the stuff as the band progresess through the years and it's like, holy hell he's good. Back a year ago when I though I was the top dog of bass playing I decided I'd try to play Penny Lane and it's no easy thing, after some practise it gets easier but it's still one of the best melodic bass lines I think exist.
 
#67
Showdown said:
Have you tried playing "I Saw Her Standing There" at the speed he played it? I've been playing for 30 years, and have played all kinds of challenging bass lines over the years, but I just learned it last week and it took 2 days for me to play it to speed without mistakes. It is a lot harder than it sounds. The same for "Day Tripper" if you play it the way he did. I see a lot of bass players play it in first position starting on the open E string, but he played it an octave higher at the 7th fret. That makes the fingering for it a lot harder, since you can't use open strings.

There are some McCartney lines that aren't difficult to play, but there are quite a few that are.
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I've been playing a long time myself and hadn't given Paul his due until I got booked on a Beatle "sound-alike" session and that tune came up first. It's just a standard boogie-woogie line, but very fast. I was playing a 35" Lakland 5er finger-style and was scuffling. Had to do a few punches - hard with that tempo and not miss any notes. Was able to score a '65 Club bass in need of repair a few months ago, looking foward to getting it back from the shop and trying some of those parts again.

Ike
 
#69
Sir Paul did have a great impact on how the bass was recorded, and I think he definitely is far more complex a player than he is given credit for. IMHO I think he's right up there with Geddy Lee when it comes to being just an all around excellent musician/songwriter.
 
#70
TheBigO said:
McCartney: No, I wouldn't. I never wrote anything on bass. Nothing. Ever. I would write on piano or guitar and I'd like to put down the original groove. But did piss George off, particularly. And I can really see why. It must have been difficult for the other guys. I'd say, "Let's try and imagine the bass and we'll get it great . . . but without the bass." I can see now that it was asking a lot, actually."

So not only did Macca always lay his bass parts down later, but he never wrote on the bass. An interesting way to work from a bassplayers perspective. And it reinforces the idea (one which applies to me these days as well) is that McCartney was more a songwriter who played bass than a bass player who wrote songs.
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I've recently had to learn some Beatles tunes for my cover band and I've found that what is seemingly easy on paper is much more difficult in practice. For example, Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds has an "easy" bassline that doesn't play so easy. McCartney actually uses different roots when playing the same measures of different versus, for no obvious reason, until you take the time to see how that changes the chord progression and the feel of the song as it moves through each verse. Also makes it frustrating to cover, because for a lot of Beatles songs, it's necessary to actually memorize every ******* note McCartney plays rather than simply improvising off a simple chord chart or else risk the song losing its character.
 
#71
hbarcat said:
I've recently had to learn some Beatles tunes for my cover band and I've found that what is seemingly easy on paper is much more difficult in practice. For example, Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds has an "easy" bassline that doesn't play so easy. McCartney actually uses different roots when playing the same measures of different versus, for no obvious reason, until you take the time to see how that changes the chord progression and the feel of the song as it moves through each verse. Also makes it frustrating to cover, because for a lot of Beatles songs, it's necessary to actually memorize every ******* note McCartney plays rather than simply improvising off a simple chord chart or else risk the song losing its character.
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We played Oh Darling! in my old band (my brother sang it very well) and it had the same problem, the bass line is integral to the sound of the song and it rarely repeats - you have to memorize every note.
 
#74
Bringing back this thread, well Sir Paul McCartney has allways been my #1 influence on the bass, the Beatles my #1 influence in music, Macca is just a great musician and bassist, sometimes he can be basic then he can just go intricate, simply an all around great bassist with Songwriting talents, he has allways stated that if anything the Beatles would sacrifice beign so musically technical for the best of a great composition, that is one thing that also sets him apart from every other bassist out there...

Macca Simply is a great bassist, musician, lyricist and overall songwriter, and he doesnt eaven know how to read music.. damm

I salute Macca

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#75
Lalo said:
Bringing back this thread, well Sir Paul McCartney has allways been my #1 influence on the bass, the Beatles my #1 influence in music, Macca is just a great musician and bassist, sometimes he can be basic then he can just go intricate, simply an all around great bassist with Songwriting talents, he has allways stated that if anything the Beatles would sacrifice beign so musically technical for the best of a great composition, that is one thing that also sets him apart from every other bassist out there...

Macca Simply is a great bassist, musician, lyricist and overall songwriter, and he doesnt eaven know how to read music.. damm

I salute Macca

paulhelp.jpg
Click to expand...

OOPS! He's a lefty!
 
#76
My sense has always been he plays what the song needs - sometimes very simple (I Feel Fine) and sometimes very complex and melodic. There's a complete Beatles Scores hardcover book - about $85, but covers everything...and yes, trying to cop some of that off the record is way too hard.
 
#77
While I would agree completely that PM is know for simple perfection, anyone that thinks that guy can't play needs to do this:

Climb under some headphones and listen to what's going on in While My Guitar Gently Weeps.

The combinations of riffs and chording is light years ahead of it's time and still tough to cop by todays standards.

IMHO
 
#79
Lennon had enormous respect and praise for Paul's bass playing. I read somewhere where Lennon said Paul was very coy about his bass playing. He wouldn't talk about it - like it was just an afterthought but all the Beatles noticed how great it was.
Lennon was funny - he would rip the Beatles but in the same breath he was obviously so proud of them - and God help someone from another band (e.g. the Stones) that criticized them, then Lennon became the Beatles' fierce defender.
NukeBass said:
The thing about McCartney I think that stands out the most (especially since he is my biggest influence) is that he is a musician first. He switched from guitar to bass easily because he knew how it was supposed to work, maybe because of his musical childhood or something. He plays piano and guitar effectively and knows what sounds "good". I'm sure developing musically around Lennon and Harrison didn't hurt either, both of whom learned to play a decent bass (Lennon-Let it Be, Harrison-Helter Skelter, some of Abbey Road)

I have to wonder what it was like to develop a style when rock and roll was developing...
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#80
I love how so many different songs get mentioned on this thread, what a great tribute to Sir Paul.

I'm working on All My Loving right now, and it has to be one of the most fun things I've ever tried to do. There's a lot of verve and humor in Paul's lines, hard to put into words. One of my favorite less-heard things is the second version of Strawberry Fields from the anthology (the one where John plays with it with the Beatles for the "first" time - it was actually the 7th take, I think).

Sir Paul is a genius.
 

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