Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

I was listening to Rain last night, and WOW that's gotta be the best sounding bass line of all. Although, Baby You're a Rich Man is a close second for me. SOO deep. I also really admire the bass part for With A Little Help from My Friends, too.

What are your favorites?

Oooh, if I had just read the post below the one I started... I'd have avoided all this egg on my face!

Ethan....it doesn't matter, egg looks good on any Ricophile...

I agree on all of your choices, they are all fine examples of Macca's melodic bass lines....

I like Paperback Writer and Ticket To Ride also....

A Day In The Life
Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds
Rain
Lovely Rita
All You Need Is Love
With A Little Help From My Friends
Penny Lane
Baby You're A Rich Man
And Your Bird Can Sing
Got To Get You Into My Life
Taxman

and many more. These are some of my favorites featuring the Ric.

Hey Bulldog
Something

The sound and technique on "Baby you're a Rich Man" has always blown me away. Even if one of his strings was seriously flat, it actually sounds good in the context though unless I'm just accustomed to it after hearing it 1000 times. Funny because I was just listening to that song the other night as to me it is the pinnacle of his bass playing, it's actually funky to me as opposed to melodic.

I always liked "And your bird can sing" but did not realize that it really meant "And your Byrd can sing" until the Anthology 2 version appeared.
Beside the superb Ric bass we have the 12 string Ric (played by George), a strumming Lennon
and the guitar solo, probably played by George and John together.

The Beatles' music changed just in the moment Paul switched to the Rickenbacker bass (?).

I think Andrew and Peter summed it up for me, but my all time favorite tone is WALHFMF.

We make sure to put "Friends" in the set every night, it's alot of fun for me.

.....Yes,...IGBWALHFMF is definitely one of my favorite lines too!!

The way I understood the thread was bass sound as opposed to bass line. He has many more interesting bass lines but the sound isn't as good such as in Don't Let Me Down, Rain, Paperback Writer WALHFMF, Fixing A Hole, Being For the Benefit of Mr. Kite. (The whole SG. Pepper album has great bass lines) there are actually a lot more great bass lines probably than BYARM, but I always though the sound which was very solid and technique stuck out in that song.

I still can't figure why he gets dissed (is that still a hep word? No?) by some bass players. He freakin' rules. So many tones, so many innovative bass lines (and he wrote a few tunes, too).

tunnel vision

I've never heard him criticized as a bass player. What complaint could anybody have? I agree with those that tout 'Hey Bulldog'; perfect Macca. It's spontaneous, fluid, he takes risks and THE SOUND! There's tons of others; 'Dear Prudence' and 'Yer Blues', 'Rain/Paperback', pretty much everything on Abbey Road... it goes on!

He is the reason I start playing bass (along with John Paul Jones). I thought he was the coolest when I was 5 and still do. Now he's my 5 year old's favorite too. Of course I didn't influence that any!