I’m talking about the bassline that just brings a smile to your face (or bass face to your face) every time you play it. The one bassline that you just can’t pick up a bass without playing it. It doesn’t have to be the most complicated or impressive line. I want to know the song, riff or whatever that when you play it you say to yourself: “this is why I love playing bass.”
I’ve got two at the moment that I just can’t decide between:
Feel Good, Inc. - I’ve mentioned this before. It’s the first real song I learned. It’s the first bassline I think of when someone mentions “basslines”. It’s the first thing I play as a warmup when I pick up the bass. I still groove hard every time I play it and I think I always will.
Sir Duke - While I only learned this one a couple months ago, this one almost gets me making a bass face every time…unless smiling is my bass face then hey! I’ve got a bass face now! The fun sounding line during the verse, the semi-chromatic bridge section then that fantastic break/instrumental. It’s got everything and I can’t pick up my guitar without playing this one either.
Honorable mention: Good Times by Chic. I mean, come on. Everyone needs to know at least 1 “three on e” song.
I find myself playing Rain (beatles) or it’s cousin Taxman a fair bit.
Money gets a look in and also Anarchy in the UK.
Perfect Strangers and White Room too.
Born under a Bad Sign too
These are the just fun a bit mindless and I just enjoy them ones.
It was Soul to Squeeze by RHCP for probably over a year. I played that every day. Really fun bass line with a little slap section that’s not too hard.
But lately I just enjoy whatever I happen to be learning. The most fun song I’ve learned lately though, is Beggin for Trouble by AFI. Very fun, very bass forward song.
And Groove is in the Heart, by Dee Lite (I haven’t recorded that one yet)
The common factor seems to be highly danceable repetitive bass lines, that are also finger workouts. They are also not songs I would have particularly looked at before taking up the bass!
It’s another on that is quite hard to keep going for the length of the song, it certainly needs a warm up!! I will eventually get round to recording it…
I like “In the Midnight Hour” by the Wicked Wilson Pickett.
“Down on the Corner” by CCR.
“What is Life” by George Harrison.
“I’ll Take you There” by the Staple Singers.
Hüsker Dü, “Don’t Want to Know if You Are Lonely”:
Another one I love to play that we have not yet covered is Pixies, “Here Comes Your Man”:
One I practice both for chugging and moving around the fretboard a lot is Muse, “The Small Print”:
I could picture us covering Pixies in the future. Muse is unlikely for us to cover as I can’t do Matt Bellamy’s vocals and my bandmate is not in to them
We are also both on kind of a cover break for a while.
I like playing Monkey Gone To Heaven by the Pixies. Another that I like is kind of a chugging tune is “In The House” by John Murphey from the “28 Days Later” soundtrack.
I dunno. None of them seem like much fun just working them out solo. But in a band setting when everything is cooking and the pocket is nice and tight they’re all fun to play and some of simplest are the most fun if I can mess around with them a bit to create some variations.
So much of how I play is based off of playing against what’s happening around me I need that to work off of so in that aspect I’m seldom playing anything note for note the way it may have been recorded. I guess for me that’s where the fun part comes from.
It’s great! I always think it’s from Fight Club, but of course it’s not!
That soundtack has of course "Where is My Mind?” by the Pixies … the other great song of them.
