Bass Makes the World Go Round
January 12th, 2010 
Fun, Life 
Chris
Years ago, before getting overwhelmed by a billion other projects, I played bass guitar (my fretless is in my closet, and hasn’t seen light in a long time). I’m not saying I was ever all that good, because I wasn’t. Just a lot of basement-garage playing of stuff like Cream (I sang the Clapton parts, believe it or not) and a lot of frustrated attempts at mastering YYZ (if you’re a bass player, you know what I’m talking about).
Although I was never a particularly noteworthy bass player, my years of slapping the four string left a powerful and everlasting affect on me: my ear is always involuntarily drawn to whatever the bass player is doing in a song. Usually when I try to get someone to recognize a tune, I mouth out the bass line — which is useless, because most people don’t play that close attention to the bass. It’s always “in the background” for them. Not for me — it’s always in the foreground. The bass line might as well be the lyrics of the song.
If you ask me, bass makes the world go around. There’s nothing better than a funky bass line that worms its way into your head and gets stuck there for days. The best ones can alleviate the worst mood, and make the crappiest day a good one and send you bopping around the room over and over. With this in mind, I was trying to think of the best funky bass lines that have just that kind of effect. There are so many it’s hard to choose, but my pick is below the fold.
Do you have a favorite funky bass line? If so, I’d love to know what it is.
For me, I’m not sure who the bass player is, but I’ve always loved the riff that runs through Don’t Leave Me This Way. Of course, Thelma’s voice puts it over the top, but without that bass line, this song would go nowhere. Rock on, Thelma! (Listening now makes me want to break that thing out of the closet!)
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