Entertainment For Lively Minds
Bass Off Songs
Posted by David Wright on 11 November 2011 - 10:13am.
As far as I know, there's no bass guitar on this record. What other well know songs do you know of, with no bass on the record?
If memory serves me right, When Doves Cry, by Prince is another.
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I was going to mention
the entire output of The Doors, as Ray Manzarek used a Fender Piano Bass in lieu of a bass player. Except it turned out that it didn't sound very good in the studio and they got a bass player in to overdub it note-for-note.
So, as you were.
Oh, The White Stripes and The Gossip have no bass player.
The Gossip
I think the guitarist plays bass on their records. Not sure if they have a touring bass player.
The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion
also proudly bass-free.
U2
?
U2 have got a bass player
but he doesn't play on the songs that feature a 12 bar blues chord sequence ;-)
I was being cruel
But compared to the giants of 'indie' music who emerged with U2 - The Smiths and REM who have wonderful bass players - Adam Clayton struck lucky.
Quite
He must pinch himself every morning when he wakes up.
Julian Cope
might not be one of his better known tracks but I seem to remember him admitting that they didn't put bass on a track, 'Laughing Boy' off the aptly titled 'Fried' as they forgot.
I'd never noticed
Some songs, if you love them enough, I don't think you even think about how they've been put together. Laughing Boy - favourite track off a contender for my favourite album by anyone.
(it does start eventually)
Sun Records
A fair amount of Jerry Lee has no bass. Whole Lotta Shakin' included. You don't miss it as his left hand is mighty.
Not Keane On Them But..
I don't think Keane had a bass player for their first few records, but they seem to have one on tour with them now.
All right now
All right now by Free only has bass on the chorus.
Spooky!
No, I don't mean the song 'Spooky.' All Right Now was playing on 6Music as I read this post.
I'm puzzled...
because I swear I can hear a bass guitar in the intro to Whiskey in the Jar? If not a bass guitar, what is it that is playing underneath the lead guitar at the beginning? It's more than a bass drum, surely?
Not Sure
There maybe is a bass in the intro, but not the rest of the song. (I don't think so anyway). There does seem to be something in the intro, can't fathom it either to be honest.
Hmm...
By "the intro" I didn't mean the very beginning. There *is* something indistinct at the very beginning playing underneath the guitar - maybe a keyboard - but I meant the bit after that and before the vocal comes in (i.e., just after those three strums of an acoustic guitar). There is something there that sounds to my ears like a bass guitar. And, in fact, having listened again to the clip, what I'm hearing continues throughout the song. It sounds to me like a pretty standard bass guitar part, playing one note per beat. But, there again, I'm getting old & my ears have never been that great.
Phantom Bass
I know where you mean now, yeah, you could be right about that. My ears aren't as great as they used to be either, so it's hard to tell. If you ever hear this song in a pub, it really does sound like there is no bass guitar playing at all.
Sister Ray
by The Velvet Undeground has no bass. I read a book about them years ago and the chapter about the recording of the White Light/White Heat album was called "There Was No Bass".
Bob Dylan
Quite a few early Dylan songs have no bass guitar. In fact he wrote one called 'When The Bass Comes In'
Early Cramps
were bass-free I think, with dual guitar supplied by Poison Ivy and Bryan Gregory (though to these ears it often sounded that there was bass in there too).
According to Coxon
there's none on Song 2.