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McCartney’s Masterpiece: Bass on the Beatles’ Something by Rob Collier
McCartney’s Masterpiece: Bass on the Beatles’ Something by Rob Collier… In last month’s article, I did an overview of Paul McCartney’s melodic bass lines, citing short examples from seven different songs. When making the list of songs to include in the article, “Something” was at the very top; however, I quickly decided I couldn’t just show excerpts from this song. It is one of the masterworks of rock bass lines, and it deserves to be presented in full.
The bass line on “Something” is, in my opinion, the best that Paul ever recorded. It is one of the best bass lines ever recorded, by anyone. You just don’t hear bass lines like this very often. It is almost like a bass solo through the whole song, weaving in and out of chords. It is very active, but still manages to stay out of the way of the vocal melody (one of the nicest melodies in the Beatles catalog).
During the Abbey Road sessions, McCartney played his Rickenbacker 4001S along with a Fender Jazz Bass he had acquired during the sessions for The White Album the previous year. Several different recording engineers worked on Abbey Road, and they each favored a different method of recording the bass. Some songs on the album were recorded by placing a microphone in front of the bass cabinet, some were recorded with a DI, and some used a combination of the two. The bass on “Something” was recorded DI as an overdub, and is most likely the Jazz Bass. This recording also features a keyboard bass that occasionally doubles the electric bass in octaves or in unison.
The bass line is pretty busy during the verses. It has an orchestral quality to it—almost like a timpani part—very percussive and dramatic. In the verses, there are usually crescendos through the 16th notes on beat 2 of the C and C7 chords. Paul also plays a slight, but very natural, crescendo on the ascending line over the G chord (measures 7, 16, 34, and 43).
During the verses, McCartney isn’t sticking to a regular pattern or even a consistent rhythmic feel. He is mixing dotted quarters, quarters, eighths, and sixteenths. The sixteenths usually fall on beats 1 and 2; McCartney tends to leave a little more space on beats 3 and 4. Still, it’s not just a straight quarter note or eighth note groove—it is fairly irregular. But the other instruments are leaving plenty of space for the bass to be active. Ringo plays the sparsest backbeat imaginable with hardly any fills (a total of three fills through the first two verses!). In the first verse, there is a rhythm guitar strumming the chords and an organ that comes in midway through to play staccato chords on the Am. The strings enter at the end of the first verse, but just as sustaining chords. So in the first two verses, the only moving parts are the vocal melody and the bass. Thus, the bass functions as harmonic foundation, countermelody, and percussive drive.
As Ringo’s part becomes substantially more active during the bridge, McCartney falls into a straight eighth note pattern. It is his turn to be supportive, but he still plays an interesting descending line, moving down the A major scale, but with an E pedal at the top (see measures 21-22).
Harmonically, this song emphasizes descending voice leading. In the bridge, the bass line goes R-7-6-5-4 (with an E pedal throughout). The opening chord progression in the verse (measures 2-5) is a familiar one: I – I(maj7) – I(b7) – IV. The typical thing to do is to start on the root and descend chromatically: R-7-b7-6. This, however, is what the vocal melody is doing: C-B-Bb-A. So McCartney, rather than just having the bass mimic the vocal melody, implies a I-V-I-IV progression by playing C in measure 2, G in measure 3, C again in measure 4, and F in measure 5. Had he doubled the already prominent line, the song would have felt much more “square”; however, McCartney makes a nice choice that brings added dimension to the song.
At the end of the verse, the chord progression does the same motion but in the relative minor, A minor. This time it is twice as fast, each chord lasting two beats rather than four. So the progression is Am – Am(maj7) – Am7 – D9. McCartney applies the same concept in the minor progression as he did in the major progression. He begins on A, plays E (and then embellishes) on the first beat of the Am(maj7) chord, goes back to A on the Am7 (in the first two verses he lands on a G), and ends the progression on the root of the D9 chord.
In measure 3, Paul plays an upper neighbor tone figure (G-A-G on the “and” of beat 2) which becomes a recurring motive, appearing again in measures 5, 12, 30, and 39. It usually occurs over the Cmaj7 chord in the verses. Since the vocal melody is at rest and the bass line is the only moving part, it attracts the listener’s attention, and makes it an easily recognizable motive.
In measure 39, the motive appears for the last time. McCartney emphasizes its importance by playing it three times. The third repeat is slightly different rhythmically, being more of a grace note before an eighth (on the “and” of beat 3). But when we hear it, we still recognize it as the upper neighbor tone motive.
This motive may seem fairly insignificant, but it actually serves to support the overall harmonic structure. Let’s look at exactly how this figure functions in relation to the whole song. “Something” is in the key of C major. The bridge modulates to A major, but returns to C before the start of the guitar solo. So the entire song has a large scale C major (verse) – A major (bridge) – C major (verse) motion. But the verses also briefly move through an A tonality, this time A minor, and then return to C. So within those larger C major sections, there is a smaller C major – A minor – C major motion. This C-A-C progression is mirrored again, though not exactly, on a comparatively microscopic level with McCartney’s G-A-G neighbor tone motive. G is the fifth of a C chord, so it is the second strongest note in the chord. With the G-A-G motive, McCartney is essentially hinting at a motion from the I chord (C) to the VI (A) and back to the I (C). It is a short motive in the bass, but it slyly sets the stage for the key changes throughout the song.
Of less structural importance to the song, but interesting from the standpoint of bass line construction, Paul consistently includes an upper neighbor tone figure over the Am(maj7) in the verses (see measure 8). The descending sixteenth note run on beats 3 and 4 always starts with the notes E-F-E, or scale degrees 5-6-5 in the key of A minor. The G-A-G motive in the first part of the verses is scale degrees 5-6-5 in C major. As mentioned above, the progression Am – Am(maj7) – Am7 – D9 is the relative minor version of C – Cmaj7 – C7 – F which begins the verses. So McCartney’s 5-6-5 neighbor tone figure occurs in the same place in the minor progression as it does in the major progression: over the maj7 chord. The two versions of the neighbor tone motive, major and minor, are different rhythmically, so their similarity is not immediately apparent upon listening to the song. The connection between the two, however, is unquestionable. It is a subtle way of tying the whole bass line—and in a way, the whole song—together.
Now let’s be realistic. McCartney was certainly not thinking about this stuff in the detail I just described. He didn’t sit down and do a harmonic analysis of the song and decide how he wanted to support it. He didn’t map out which parts of the song he had space to play sixteenth note runs and in which parts he should lay back. But he did these things intuitively. The neighbor tone motive was not an accident, nor was it a coincidence each time it occurred. It was the product of a great bass player instinctively constructing a great bass line—arguably one of the best bass lines ever recorded.
Bass Videos
Interview With Bassist Erick “Jesus” Coomes
Bassist Erick “Jesus” Coomes…
It is always great to meet a super busy bassist who simply exudes a love for music and his instrument. Erick “Jesus” Coomes fits this description exactly. Hailing from Southern California, “Jesus” co-founded and plays bass for Lettuce and has found his groove playing with numerous other musicians.
Join us as we hear of his musical journey, how he gets his sound, his ongoing projects, and his plans for the future.
Photo, Bob Forte
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www.lettucefunk.com
IG @jesuscsuperstar
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Bass Videos
Working-Class Zeros: Episode #2 – Financial Elements of Working Musicians
Working-Class Zeros: Episode #2 – Financial Elements of Working Musicians
“These stories from the front are with real-life, day-to-day musicians who deal with work life and gigging and how they make it work out. Each month, topics may include… the kind of gigs you get, the money, dealing with less-than-ideal rooms, as well as the gear you need to get the job done… and the list goes on from there.” – Steve the Bass Guy and Shawn Cav
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This Week’s Top 10 Basses on Instagram
Check out our top 10 favorite basses on Instagram this week…
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Bass CDs
New Album: Jake Leckie, Planter of Seeds
Bassist Jake Leckie and The Guide Trio Unveil New Album Planter of Seeds,
to be released on June 7, 2024
Planter of Seeds is bassist/composer Jake Leckie’s third release as a bandleader and explores what beauty can come tomorrow from the seeds we plant today.
What are we putting in the ground? What are we building? What is the village we want to bring our children up in? At the core of the ensemble is The Guide Trio, his working band with guitarist Nadav Peled and drummer Beth Goodfellow, who played on Leckie’s second album, The Guide, a rootsy funky acoustic analog folk-jazz recording released on Ropeadope records in 2022. For Planter of Seeds, the ensemble is augmented by Cathlene Pineda (piano), Randal Fisher (tenor saxophone), and Darius Christian (trombone), who infuse freedom and soul into the already tightly established ensemble.
Eight original compositions were pristinely recorded live off the floor of Studio 3 at East West Studios in Hollywood CA, and mastered by A.T. Michael MacDonald. The cover art is by internationally acclaimed visual artist Wayne White. Whereas his previous work has been compared to Charles Mingus, and Keith Jarrett’s American Quartet with Charlie Haden, Leckie’s new collection sits comfortably between the funky odd time signatures of the Dave Holland Quintet and the modern folk-jazz of the Brian Blade Fellowship Band with a respectful nod towards the late 1950s classic recordings of Ahmad Jamal and Miles Davis.
The title track, “Planter of Seeds,” is dedicated to a close family friend, who was originally from Trinidad, and whenever she visited family or friends at their homes, without anyone knowing, she would plant seeds she kept in her pocket in their gardens, so the next season beautiful flowers would pop up. It was a small altruistic anonymous act of kindness that brought just a little more beauty into the world. The rhythm is a tribute to Ahmad Jamal, who we also lost around the same time, and whose theme song Poinciana is about a tree from the Caribbean.
“Big Sur Jade” was written on a trip Leckie took with his wife to Big Sur, CA, and is a celebration of his family and community. This swinging 5/4 blues opens with an unaccompanied bass solo, and gives an opportunity for each of the musicians to share their improvisational voices. “Clear Skies” is a cathartic up-tempo release of collective creative energies in fiery improvisational freedom. “The Aquatic Uncle” features Randal Fisher’s saxophone and is named after an Italo Calvino short story which contemplates if one can embrace the new ways while being in tune with tradition. In ancient times, before a rudder, the Starboard side of the ship was where it was steered from with a steering oar. In this meditative quartet performance, the bass is like the steering oar of the ensemble: it can control the direction of the music, and when things begin to unravel or become unhinged, a simple pedal note keeps everything grounded.
The two trio tunes on the album are proof that the establishment of his consistent working band The Guide Trio has been a fruitful collaboration. “Santa Teresa”, a bouncy samba-blues in ? time, embodies the winding streets and stairways of the bohemian neighborhood in Rio de Janeiro it is named for. The swampy drum feel on “String Song” pays homage to Levon Helm of The Band, a group where you can’t always tell who wrote the song or who the bandleader is, proving that the sum is greater than the individual parts. Early jazz reflected egalitarianism in collective improvisation, and this group dynamic is an expression of that kind of inclusivity and democracy.
“The Daughters of the Moon” rounds out the album, putting book ends on the naturalist themes. This composition is named after magical surrealist Italo Calvino’s short story about consumerism, in which a mythical modern society that values only buying shiny new things throws away the moon like it is a piece of garbage and the daughters of the moon save it and resurrect it. It’s an eco-feminist take on how women are going to save the world. Pineda’s piano outro is a hauntingly beautiful lunar voyage, blinding us with love. Leckie dedicates this song to his daughter: “My hope is that my daughter becomes a daughter of the moon, helping to make the world a more beautiful and verdant place to live.”
Bass CDs
Debut Album: Nate Sabat, Bass Fiddler
In a thrilling solo debut, bassist Nate Sabat combines instrumental virtuosity with a songwriter’s heart on Bass Fiddler…
The upright bass and the human voice. Two essential musical instruments, one with roots in 15th century Europe, the other as old as humanity itself.
On Bass Fiddler (Adhyâropa Records ÂR00057), the debut album from Brooklyn-based singer-songwriter and bass virtuoso Nate Sabat, the scope is narrowed down a bit. Drawing from the rich and thriving tradition of American folk music, Sabat delivers expertly crafted original songs and choice covers with the upright bass as his lone tool for accompaniment.
The concept was born a decade ago when Sabat began studying with the legendary old-time fiddler Bruce Molsky at Berklee College of Music. “One of Bruce’s specialties is singing and playing fiddle at the same time. The second I heard it I was hooked,” recalls Sabat. “I thought, how can I do this on the bass?” From there, he was off to the races, arranging original and traditional material with Molsky as his guide. “Fast forward to 2020, and I — like so many other musicians — was thinking of how to best spend my time. I sat down with the goal of writing some new songs and arranging some new covers, and an entire record came out.” When the time came to make the album, it was evident that Molsky would be the ideal producer. Sabat asked him if he’d be interested, and luckily he was. “What an inspiration to work with an artist like Nate,” says Molsky. “Right at the beginning, he came to this project with a strong, personal and unique vision. Plus he had the guts to try for a complete and compelling cycle of music with nothing but a bass and a voice. You’ll hear right away that it’s engaging, sometimes serious, sometimes fun, and beautifully thought out from top to bottom.”
While this record is, at its core, a folk music album, Sabat uses the term broadly. Some tracks lean more rock (‘In the Shade’), some more pop (‘White Marble’, ‘Rabid Thoughts’), some more jazz (‘Fade Away’), but the setting ties them all together. “There’s something inherently folksy about a musician singing songs with their instrument, no matter the influences behind the compositions themselves,” Sabat notes. To be sure, there are plenty of folk songs (‘Louise’ ‘Sometimes’, ‘Eli’) and fiddling (‘Year of the Ox’) to be had here — the folk music fan won’t go hungry. There’s a healthy dose of bluegrass too (‘Orphan Annie’, ‘Lonesome Night’), clean and simple, the way Mr. Bill Monroe intended.
All in all, this album shines a light on an instrument that often goes overlooked in the folk music world, enveloping the listener in its myriad sounds, textures, and colors. “There’s nothing I love more than playing the upright bass,” exclaims Sabat. “My hope is that listeners take the time to sit with this album front to back — I want them to take in the full scope of the work. I have a feeling they’ll hear something they haven’t heard before.”
Available online at natesabat.bandcamp.com/album/walking-away
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Working-Class Zeros: Episode #2 – Financial Elements of Working Musicians
Tour Touch Base (Bass) with Ian Allison
New Gear: Spector Woodstock Custom Collection Volume II
New Gear: The Dingwall John Taylor Signature Model
This Week’s Top 10 Basses on Instagram
Working-Class Zeros: Episode #2 – Financial Elements of Working Musicians
New Gear: Esopus Guitars Launches New Acoustic/Electric Bass
Debut Album: Nate Sabat, Bass Fiddler
