‘Teen Town’: Geddy Lee discusses “one of the most quintessential bass songs”
Rock and roll is never going to run out of great guitar songs. Although ballads might require a piano here and there and usually a pounding rhythm to keep things swinging, the guitar has been the signature instrument for a damn good reason, being responsible for the greatest riffs of the past twentieth century. There tends to be not as much love for the bass players, but Geddy Lee thought everything you needed to know about the four-string was in the song ‘Teen Town’.
Then again, half of Rush’s catalogue could be considered bass clinics for any aspiring musician. Compared to the bass gods that had come before Lee, like Chris Squire of Yes, he still played with a pick to get his signature attack. Lee was known for pounding the hell out of his bass at breakneck speed, all with his fingers, so there was little room for letup when it came to any of their songs.
Although John Entwistle of The Who and Jack Bruce of Cream had their moments of being absolutely ferocious with their instruments, they still couldn’t hold a candle to Jaco Pastorius. Being influenced by pretty much everything other than rock and roll, the bass legend would become a fixture of the jazz fusion scene, usually getting the most out of harmonics on the bass on songs like ‘Continuum’.
Before Pastorius struck out on his own, Weather Report was the breeding ground for his chops. Compared to other progressive bands out at the time, like early Journey and Emerson, Lake and Palmer, Weather Report were more interested in treating songs almost like catchy exercises, with ‘Teen Town’ being one of the hardest songs to pull off.
Even though it’s easy to look at the song from a music theory perspective and see where everything is going, it’s borderline impossible to keep up with what Pastorius is putting his fingers through. Compared to artists who like to make the most out of laying into a groove, Pastorius is like a well-oiled machine throughout every second, which will lead many prospective bassists to wonder whether he’s actually human halfway through the song.
For Lee, nothing defined bass better than this one track, telling Music Radar, “There’s a famous song Jaco wrote called Teen Town, one of the most quintessential bass songs that’s ever been written…I’d never seen a bassist like that, making the sounds he got out of his fretless. It was unbelievable; he was the combination of a technician and a sound stylist, very adventurous and experimental with tones”.
While Rush certainly had their progressive tendencies in the 1970s, Lee sprinkled a few jazzy textures into the band’s later work. Considering ‘Teen Town’ was released at the same time that prog giants roamed the Earth, it’s hard to see the dexterity of Pastorius bleed over into a song like ‘Vital Signs’ off Moving Pictures, featuring Lee playing a bass groove that hardly ever stops for a break through its nearly five-minute runtime.
Most importantly, though, Lee kept the cardinal rule of bass playing in check when listening to Pastorius. Playing circles around everyone else might be fun at first, but to be a truly good bass player, it’s about making those fretboard acrobatics for the service of a great song.
