Credit: Far Out / Alamy

The Beatles song Paul McCartney is “still trying to figure” out

Mon 31 March 2025 18:45, UK

The Beatles had no right to be as big as they were. Sadly, avant-garde virtuosos with all the right ideas very rarely lead this world, but they beautifully bucked that trend in a way that is tricky to fathom. They were pioneers by populist. Everything they did felt fresh and new, yet they were true to the spirit of rock ‘n’ roll. They were everything, everywhere, all at once, and nobody embodied that more than Paul McCartney.

“Paul McCartney is, in my opinion, the greatest living musician,“ Andy Bell of Ride and Oasis once told Far Out. “He’s also one of the very few people truly worthy of the term ‘genius’. His talent, in multiple areas of music, is astounding, actually almost unbelievable, and although he is rightly respected and loved for his music all over the world, if anything, he is also the most criminally underrated musician on the planet as well.“

Importantly, McCartney wasn’t just a visionary, he also had the chops to bring The Beatles’ ideas to life. As Bell continues: ”Best bass player ever. Part of the best songwriting team ever. One of the greatest singers ever. He keeps on moving forward and isn’t afraid to experiment, but really you feel like he is primarily making music to please himself. It’s just very lucky that we all get to share it as well.”

Thus, his talents are well established. In fact, on a purely technical level, he is regarded as one of the finest of his era by many equally esteemed minds like the maestro himself, Leonard Bernstein. Nevertheless, there is one Beatles track that he admits he always struggles to grapple with: ‘Being For The Benefit of Mr Kite’ from 1967’s Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.

The hardest Beatles bassline?

It says a lot about McCartney’s approach to music that he is also very fond of the challenge. “Probably my favourite bass line is Mr. Kite, ‘Being for the Benefit of Mr Kite’,” he said in a Q&A. “Because it’s complicated. It’s kind of a difficult bass line. And what’s really difficult is to sing it and play the bass at the same time, because your head goes that way and your fingers go [the other]. It’s really sort of strange combination to do it, but it’s a melodic bassline and I like it.”

It’s angular and it gleefully plays around with syncopation, but all of that is done by design rather than with pretense in mind. It’s a fun track to listen to—so fun, in fact, that the complexity almost passes you by unless you’ve ever tried to play it. That’s the beauty of McCartney at his best: his playfulness becomes yours to share.

Speaking to Rolling Stone in 2013, McCartney, after re-introducing the track to his solo setlist that year, explained: “‘Mr. Kite’ is such a crazy, oddball song that I thought it would freshen up the set. Plus the fact that I’d never done it. None of us in The Beatles ever did that song (in concert)… That’s challenging. I mean, something like ‘Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite!’ is hard to do.”

Continuing, he added: “Ask a bass player who sings. It’s contrapuntal, man! It really is. I’ve got to sing a melody that’s going to one place, and then I’ve got to play this bassline that’s going to other places. It’s a concentration thing. But that’s half the fun of the show. I’m still practising, still trying to figure it out…It’s like, ‘How does this one go again?’… But like I said, you’ve got to look at what you’re doing when you play that one.”

It’s a Beethoven-esque bassline in that it is free from the grammar of any set style. Listened to in isolation, it could be punk, funk or R&B, but in any case, it is exactly what the song needed. Following a footloose style heralded by his bass hero, James Jamerson, McCartney waltzes in a manner that captures the carnival feel that the track was going for while always driving the rhythm forward, summoning a slew of interesting changes in an unguessable fashion.

In many ways, the tuba-like line plays a direct counterpoint to the vocal, making it all the more extraordinary that he contributed both. If you ever wanted a song to signpost the musical brilliance of Macca, then you may well point to this floating fascination. No wonder he is still trying to figure it out, like Leonard Cohen’s unending verses to ‘Hallelujah’ or Bob Dylan’s ever-altering melody to ‘Desolation Row’, that’s often the sign of art at its best.