Paul McCartney's Best Post-Beatles Bass Moment

Paul McCartney’s Bassline in "Silly Love Songs" and the Art of Counterpoint

In a 1995 interview with Bass Player, Paul McCartney reflected on his early years as a bassist, highlighting the period around Rubber Soul and Sgt. Pepper as his most creative. During this time, he could fully focus on crafting intricate basslines that complemented the songs. In contrast, during his time with Wings, McCartney often had to juggle multiple roles, which he felt limited his ability to play at his best.

However, guitarist Laurence Juber, who worked with Wings for two years before becoming a session musician in London and Los Angeles, disagreed. He argued that many of McCartney's basslines from the Wings era were overlooked but still exceptional. “Some of it I don’t think he even recognizes himself, yet,” Juber said in an October 2013 issue of Bass Player. One prime example is the bassline for “Silly Love Songs,” a track that spent five weeks at No. 1 on the U.S. charts.

The Making of “Silly Love Songs”

“Silly Love Songs” was recorded at Abbey Road Studios in January and February 1976 for the album Wings at the Speed of Sound. At the time, McCartney faced criticism from the music press and even John Lennon for writing what some called “lightweight” songs. In response, he later created a more techno-oriented version featuring Louis Johnson on bass for the 1984 film Give My Regards to Broad Street.

According to Juber, who worked with McCartney during his time with Wings, the bassline was played on a flatwound-strung Rickenbacker 4001S. McCartney used a heavy-gauge pick, playing both directly and through a miked Fender Bassman amplifier, with a Fairchild Compressor on all bass tracks. Denny Laine and Jimmy McCulloch handled guitar duties, while Joe English provided drums. Additional layers included keyboards, vocals, a four-piece horn section, and strings.

A Unique Approach to Counterpoint

What sets “Silly Love Songs” apart from other McCartney basslines, such as the iconic one in “Come Together” or the busy line in “Goodnight Tonight,” is the way the vocal and bassline run together in counterpoint. This technique was a key point for Juber, who covered the song on solo guitar for his 2005 album One Wing.

“Paul’s gift for singing and playing a bassline in counterpoint is remarkable,” Juber said. “One of my favorite Paul McCartney bass parts is on his first solo single, ‘Another Day,’ where at times the bass and vocals move in parallel sevenths. When counterpoint is done well like that, it can drift outside of strict church harmony, and that’s where the personality really emerges.”

Structural Elements and Musical Techniques

The song begins with eight bars of a simulated assembly line, which serves as a symbolic precursor to the driving, repetitive bassline and four-on-the-floor drum pulse that follow. Four more bars of intro allude to the bassline shape, which takes its full four-bar form at the first verse.

Interestingly, McCartney’s vocal is a three-bar phrase, leaving the fourth bar open for the bass. However, the bar 4 bassline actually finishes a two-bar phrase that begins under the Fmaj7 chord in bar 3. Two key elements are McCartney’s use of chromatic passing notes, which help the melodic flow of the line (a device he has always employed, as a fan of Tin Pan Alley songs), and his interesting application of short and long notes.

“Paul plays with a very hard touch onstage, but he has a real sensitivity to dynamics and note duration in the studio,” Juber noted. “Even though the basic sequence of C Em7 Fmaj7 repeats in both the verses and choruses, the ear doesn’t tire of it because he doesn’t use a heavier, final-sounding, dominant V chord cadence.”

Evolution of the Song

For the first chorus, at 01:02, McCartney keeps the same driving bassline, while the vocals pare down to whole notes. His use of up-and-down strokes with a pick is revealed via his 16th-note pickup at 01:32.

The bridge arrives with a unison riff that answers the vocal before building over the last five bars. The horn soli gives way to the breakdown at 03:12. As the vocals get more contrapuntal, the bass builds to a root-5th-octave pattern.

The horn soli reprises at 03:42, leading into a more minimal breakdown at 04:13, without bass for a bit (listen around 04:43 for bass panned way left and in the distance). The buildup involves McCartney’s Latin bass figure again and a trick horn soli that lasts only four bars.

Finally, the song returns to a verse at 05:22, ending exotically on the III minor chord – “the most bittersweet chord in the C major scale,” noted Juber.