How Paul McCartney changed the face of bass playing
Paul McCartney could be considered the living embodiment of music. From his time with The Beatles to his solo years and countless collaborations, Macca has turned in time across every instrument he comes across to become one of the most well-rounded musicians in mainstream music. If you want a look at McCartney’s true genius, it all circles back to when he picked up the bass guitar.
When the Beatles were originally starting out, McCartney was initially on rhythm guitar alongside John Lennon, where they would advertise “the rhythm is in the guitars” when they couldn’t find a drummer to play with. As the rest of the Fab Four began to fall into place, Stu Sutcliffe leaving the band left the door open for McCartney to pick up the four string.
During the Beatles’ salad days, the bass was looked at as more of a rhythm instrument, looking to serve the rhythm section and hold down the groove for the guitars. And when you listen to the Beatles’ early tracks, you can hear that in action, like when McCartney stays on the root notes throughout ‘Love Me Do’ or ‘Please Please Me’. Around the time of Rubber Soul, however, McCartney started to drastically switch around his basslines.
Looking at his instrument almost like a piece of an orchestra, every one of the Beatles’ songs got a huge boost from Paul’s low ending after 1965. The first glimpses of this turn up on songs like ‘Drive My Car’ and ‘You Won’t See Me’, where McCartney takes inspiration from Motown bass players like James Jamerson to fill out the low end. It might have started off as McCartney imitating his heroes, but it doesn’t take long before imitation becomes something original.
Although McCartney’s bass could be heard at the front of the mix on songs like ‘Taxman’, Sgt. Peppers revolutionised the bass in more ways than one. Throughout every song, McCartney knows when to add just a slight instrumental flourish, whether that’s dancing around the chord changes on ‘With a Little Help From My Friends’ or making his four-string sound like a tuba on the pre-chorus to ‘Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds’.
While McCartney was expanding his musical palette, the rest of the Fabs were trying their hand at other genres as well, with George Harrison delving into Eastern music and John Lennon immersing himself in the avant-garde. The band’s self-titled White Album is a perfect example of every member’s influence working in sync with each other, like McCartney adding a biting tone to ‘While My Guitar Gently Weeps’ by playing chords instead of single notes.
By the time the band got to making their intended swan song Abbey Road, McCartney had grown tenfold as a bass player. Despite having a firm grasp on songwriting, his greatest strength came with serving his bandmates’ songs, making his four-string sing on Harrison’s ‘Something’ and giving an extra layer of personality to ‘I Want You (She’s So Heavy)’ during its heavy bridge section.
Even some of the most technically gifted bass players list McCartney as a fave. During a recent interview, Geddy Lee from Rush singled out songs like ‘Taxman’ and ‘Come Together’, saying: “If you listen to ‘Come Together’ that’s a bold bass part in that in song. If you listen to ‘Taxman’, that’s heavy metal before there was heavy metal”.
The innovation didn’t stop once the Beatles ended either, as McCartney gave a new dimension to his bass tone with Wings on ‘Silly Love Songs’ and further on in his solo career. Even though he has given the music world more than its fair share of classic tunes, Paul McCartney is still curious as to where his bass playing is going to take him next.
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