The Beatles “Drive My Car” Isolated Bass

Paul McCartney is one of the most influential bass players ever, and it’s always very cool to be able to listen to his isolated bass tracks. Today we’ll take a listen to The Beatles “Drive My Car” from the Rubber Soul album. Here’s what to listen for.

1. Listen to the pickup notes at the end of the bass phrase during the verse. He doesn’t play it all the time, but it makes for a very funky bass line when he does.

2. Paul plays the bass line of the chorus differently, sometimes even within the same chorus. Sometimes each note is held out, and other times it’s very staccato.

3. The bass track is far from perfect, with a major clam at 1:57 and some minor ones along the way. That said, it took another 10 years or so until production techniques really focused on each individual part and how it interacted with the other elements of the song, as well as how consistently each part was played.

In other words, it’s a great track for its time, but would have been fixed or replayed in today’s production environment.