Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

After all these years, i don't recall anyone ever asking McCartney how he came to play his 1-5 bass style evident in earlier Beatles songs (a good example is FROM ME TO YOU). He did this on many '63-'64 recordings, going from the 1 to the 5 (in C this would be back and forth between C and G). When played alone it sounds like a country lick. Hope I'm making myself clear. Anyone?

1-5 is a very basic line that should be in any bass players arsenal. A lot of 50's rock n roll that influenced The Beatles is 1-5 and they also listened to and played a lot of country music too. Rock n roll partially came from country music. I still use that line in certain songs and styles. She Loves You could have easily been 1-1-5 instead of 1-1-1, boom ba boom, etc. The last boom could have been 5 instead of another 1. This is what he does in From Me To You. The extra little beat is what makes it different from a traditional country line.
MaCartney just took the styles of the day and expanded upon them, he took bass light years from where it was in 1960 in just ten short years. But he still played 1-5 in 1970. One After 909 even though written ten years earlier was on Let It Be and was textbook 1-5. People who put MaCartney down as a bass player (I don't mean you, I'm just sounding off) don't have any sense of the history and evolution of the instrument. In fact as I listen to I Me Mine, it has a modified 1-5 bass line in the middle, it's a very basic building block of bass.

Great explanation, Bob! Well said.