Although Paul McCartney is generally envisaged on stage with The Beatles playing his iconic Höfner bass guitar, his legacy transcends any specific instrumental command. Throughout the 1960s, McCartney became a competent pianist. But the six-string guitar was his favored domain and primary songwriting conduit from day one.
McCartney first joined John Lennon’s skiffle band, The Quarrymen, in 1957. He impressed his future songwriting partner with his rhythm guitar skills. Within months, The Quarrymen became a five-piece with the addition of Stuart Sutcliffe and George Harrison on bass and lead guitar, respectively. With Pete Best behind the drum kit, this was the first lineup of The Beatles following Lennon’s rebrand in 1960.
McCartney only took the role of bassist by necessity upon Sutcliffe’s departure in the summer of ’61. He wasn’t keen on picking up the four-string but as the most versatile and technically gifted musician in the band. It seemed a logical decision. “Nobody wants to play bass, or nobody did in those days,” McCartney noted in Barry Miles’ Many Years From Now.
According to McCartney, the bass guitar was seen as the most boring and impactful instrument in the classic rhythm and blues configuration. After all, Elvis Presley and Chuck Berry played the guitar, and Little Richard played the piano. Faceless session musicians often handled bass lines. McCartney added, “They asked the fat boys to stand at the back and play bass, but bass was the thing.” “So I didn’t want to do it, but Stuart left, and I ended up getting lumbered with it.” Later, I was quite happy.”
Over time, McCartney learned to enjoy his instrumental role, and today, people regard him as an innovative and highly influential bassist. However, the bass guitar never consumed him, and a six-string was never far away. “I never wrote anything on bass,” McCartney recalled in a 1999 interview. “I would write on piano or guitar, and I’d like to put down the original groove. But did piss George off particularly, and I can see why. It must have been difficult for the other guys.”
As we saw in Peter Jackson’s The Beatles: Get Back, McCartney became quite adept at pissing Harrison off towards the end of the band’s time together. Chiefly, Lennon and McCartney’s lion’s share of album real estate frustrated the lead guitarist. However, earlier, George Martin asked McCartney to play the lead parts in Harrison’s 1966 Revolver contribution, ‘Taxman’. This left a sour taste in Harrison’s mouth, but McCartney just had a superhuman knack for composition.
Somewhere among his credits as an influential songwriter, bassist, guitarist, etc. Many cite McCartney as an early progenitor of the heavy metal genre. While John Lennon was usually responsible for The Beatles’ heavier compositions, McCartney crafted ‘Helter Skelter’ as a reaction to the thunderous rock sound The Who had been plumbing out of late.
From McCartney’s screaming lyrics about a fairground slide to the overdriven walk-down riff, the song had the prescient stench of metal. In this riff, McCartney joined the likes of Pete Townshend, Dave Davies, Jimmy Page, and Tony Iommi in pushing the first domino on the road of metal guitar evolution.
Across metal’s rich half-century history, McCartney will have undoubtedly heard some hardcore material that’s a little much for his soft-rock inclinations. Still, some of the early stalwarts like Black Sabbath, AC/DC, and Van Halen were very much to his taste.
As far as Paul McCartney is concerned, metal guitar reached its pinnacle with the late Eddie Van Halen. “I like Eddie Van Halen as a player – he gets it right quite often,” McCartney told Guitar Player in 1990.
Continuing, the former Beatle revealed that his enthusiasm for metal bands is usually dependent on the guitarist. “I like a lot of heavy metal guys because they wind it up,” he said. “What I usually like in a heavy metal band is the guitar player, but when it’s just miles of scales, I lose interest.”
Four years earlier, Paul McCartney mentioned Van Halen while discussing his fondness for Jimi Hendrix in a conversation with Rolling Stone. His ranking appears to place Hendrix in first with Van Halen trailing close behind. “I have very fond memories of Jimi,” he said, “I mean, Van Halen’s great. I love Eddie Van Halen, but I still think Jimi was the best.”
Eddie Van Halen, like almost every rock star, was a fan of The Beatles. Watch him perform a lead cover of ‘Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)’ below.
