The classic Beatles bassline that wasn’t written by Paul McCartney
Chuck Berry was an integral inspiration for The Beatles. Across their career, Berry’s influence could be heard in all manner of ways, from George Harrison’s lead guitar lines to John Lennon’s desire to right straightforward rock and roll numbers. The band covered quite a few Berry tunes, especially in the early days when tracks like ‘Roll Over Beethoven’ and ‘Rock and Roll Music’ made their way onto official Beatles studio albums.
In fact, Lennon even got in trouble for imitating Berry a little bit too closely. That was on ‘Come Together’, a song that Lennon originally wrote as a favour to Timothy Leary. Leary was gearing up for a controversial run in the election for Governor of California when he visited Lennon and Yoko Ono at their Bed-In For Peace in Montreal. Leary provided Lennon with his campaign slogan, “Come Together – Join the Party!” and Lennon was off.
Likely pressed for time and finding little inspiration in the initial assignment, Lennon borrowed a bit of Berry’s ‘You Can’t Catch Me’, including swiping some of the lyrics. Lennon was later sued by Berry’s publishers, which eventually led to the creation of Lennon’s 1975 album Rock’ n Roll. But Lennon wasn’t the only one who stole from Berry: one of Paul McCartney’s most iconic basslines was also a Berry original.
It took McCartney a while to get adjusted to playing the bass. “I did get quite proud to be a bass player, quite proud of the idea,” McCartney told Tony Bacon in 1994. “Once you realised the control you had over the band, you were in control. They can’t go anywhere, man, Ha. Power! I then started to identify with other bass players, to talk bass with the guys in the band. In fact, when we met Elvis, he was trying to learn bass, so l was like, “You’re trying to learn bass, are you … son? Sit down, let me show you a few things. So I was very proud of being the bass player.”
However, he found that playing melodic basslines wasn’t conducive to his other duties as a singer. That’s why most of McCartney’s earliest basslines are simpler than the ones he would write after the group stopped touring. “The other thing for me that was hard was because some of these parts were independently melodic parts, it became much more difficult to sing,” he said.
“So I had to put a little special effort into that, which made it very interesting,” McCartney added. “If you were singing, ‘She was just 17… and going [sings energetic bass-line] well… that became the skill. I could just learn [the bassline for ‘I Saw Her Standing There’], nicked from Chuck Berry, as I’m sure you know. ‘I’m Talking About You’. I’ve given him credit, though.”
“Here’s one example of a bit I pinched from someone: I used the bass riff from ‘I’m Talking About You’ by Chuck Berry in ‘I Saw Her Standing There’,” McCartney told Beat Instrumental in 1992. “I played exactly the same notes as he did, and it fitted our number perfectly. Even now, when I tell people, I find few of them believe me; therefore, I maintain that a bass riff hasn’t got to be original.”
Interview credit to Berry, sure, but no writing credits. Besides, Berry wasn’t the originator of that bassline: it was Berry’s bass player at the time, Reggie Boyd. The Beatles had performed ‘I’m Talking About You’ in their earliest days and even performed it during one of their appearances at the BBC.
Check out that version down below.
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