BEATLES MAGAZINE: THE SOUND OF McCARTNEY: TWO KEY INSPIRATIONS

Wednesday, 25 June 2025

THE SOUND OF McCARTNEY: TWO KEY INSPIRATIONS

In a past interview (1994), Paul McCartney said of his position as the bassist of the Fab Four:

“From the word go, once I got over the fact that I was lumbered with the bass (laughs), I did get quite proud to be a bass player, quite proud of the idea. Once you realised the control you had over the band, you were in control. They can’t go anywhere, man. Ha! Power!”.

He said: “I then started to identify with other bass players, to talk bass with the guys in the band. In fact, when we met Elvis, he was trying to learn bass, so I was like, ‘You’re trying to learn bass, are you … son? Sit down, let me show you a few things’.
"So I was very proud of being the bass player. But as it went on and I got into that melodic thing, that was probably the peak of my interest.”

After revealing that his father was a musician, who’d point out the difference between a bass and a guitar when a song came on the radio, McCartney explained: “So when I came to the Beatles, I had a little bit of musical knowledge through him – very amateur. And yes, then I started listening to other bass players, mainly as time went on. Motown, James Jamerson became just my hero, really. I didn’t actually know his name until quite recently. Him and Brian Wilson were my two biggest influences.”

Paul continued: “James Jamerson just because he was so good and melodic, and Brian because he went to very unusual places. If you were playing in C he might stay on the G a lot, just to hold it all back, and again, I started to realise the power you had within the band, not actually vengeful power, just that even though the whole band is going in A you could go in E, and they’d go ‘Let us off the hook!’ You’re actually in control then, an amazing thing.”

Being “in control” is a technique not often thought of as such. Being in the studio and a part of a track is certainly beneficial to getting a great song down on the tape, but for virtuosos like McCartney, it needs to go one step further; it needs complete dominance over the recordings. This was a lesson he undoubtedly learned from The Beach Boys mastermind, Brian Wilson.

Wilson was a noted influence on McCartney’s career. Not only did he write ‘God Only Knows’, a song which McCartney has regularly cited as his favourite of all time, but his use of studio techniques and meticulous dedication to perfection are something that McCartney certainly took into The Beatles final albums.

The lessons that Jamerson and Wilson taught McCartney would stand him in good stead for creating his style that is so unmistakable today: “So I sussed that and got particularly interested in playing the bass. Then I took it beyond that. I thought, ‘If you can do that, what else can you do?’ You might even be able to play notes that aren’t in the chord.”

Paul concluded: “I just started to experiment: what could you do? Well, maybe you can use different notes. Sevenths instead of the regular notes, or maybe even a little tune through the chords that doesn’t exist anywhere else. That idea of an independent melody.”