The 1966 song Paul McCartney struggled to play the most: “You just have to learn each part”
By 1966, Paul McCartney never had to worry about performing live if he didn’t want to anymore.
The Beatles had outgrown the touring lifestyle, and even if they tried their hardest to give the fans what they wanted, the idea of spending the rest of their lives being screamed at wasn’t really something that they had signed up for when they began playing. But Macca has always been fond of live performances before anything else, and he would gladly throw in as many hits as his fans wanted as long as he could play them alright.
When the Fab Four were working on their classic albums, though, chances are McCartney was just looking to make whatever bassline fit the moment. The back half of their career was always about finding the kind of tunes that sounded best, and even if Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band was a landmark piece of rock and roll, McCartney was looking at his music like art pieces rather than fully fleshed-out live tunes.
And once Wings started, it’s not like McCartney was comfortable playing some of those tunes, either. For one thing, he didn’t need another reminder of his bandmates that he had to sue around that time, but once that was all water under the bridge, he knew that he could get at least a little nostalgic. There were millions of people waiting to hear those songs live, so why not throw something like ‘Let It Be’ or ‘Yesterday’ into the setlist?
The whole thing seemed easy enough when McCartney started making his first real solo tours, but going back to pay service to his friends was bound to be a challenge. There was a lot of thought that went into the basslines of tunes like ‘Being for the Benefit of Mr Kite’ and ‘Something’, but while McCartney can fake it to a certain degree by playing a different instrument, ‘Day Tripper’ was always the tune that tripped him up a little too much whenever he played it.
For any guitarist, though, the whole song seems easy enough. John Lennon’s guitar figure is one of the first complicated riffs that people learn when they’re picking up the six-string for the first time, but McCartney had his work cut out for him when he tried to learn the whole thing in a completely different position on the neck.
And if that wasn’t enough, trying to sing the tune while playing the bass line was a nightmare when McCartney first revisited the tune, saying, “The worst for me was ‘Day Tripper’; I had to try to sing the high part and play a completely independent riff. You just have to learn each part separately. Once your brain has learned its bit and your hands have learned their bit, and you’ve persuaded them to go off in different directions, you’re on your way!”
Even if he can rely on muscle memory at this point, it’s definitely strange seeing the way that he gets around a lot of the strange notes in the riff. He has to play the whole thing an octave up to give the song a little more bite, and seeing him slide into some of those notes is confusing even to someone who has played the same riff for a decade.
Granted, McCartney’s problems weren’t going to be the same as what someone like James Hetfield or Tony Iommi go through onstage, but pulling double duty as the bass player and the singer is no easy feat. He has to hold down both the rhythm section and the melody every single time he plays live, and even if he looks like he’s singing without a care in the world every time he performs, there’s a lot more method to his madness whenever he locks in with the rest of the band.
Never Miss A Beat
The Far Out Beatles Newsletter
All the latest stories about The Beatles from the independent voice of culture.
Straight to your inbox.