The Beatles’ “Drive My Car” Isolated Bass

Correction: in the earlier version of this story, we incorrectly attributed this isolated bass track to Paul McCartney, when it was actually played by George Harrison. Thanks to Brad Richardson for pointing that out to us. Check out the Wikipedia article about this track for more.

Our isolated bass track on the Beatles’ “Lovely Rita” is getting a lot of attention lately.

Here’s another isolated track for the tune “Drive My Car,” which appeared on the 1965 release Rubber Soul.

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Leave a Reply to Scott St Pierre Cancel reply

  1. McCartney didn’t play bass on this one, George did. Paul played lead guitar.

  2. We’re really crediting Wikipedia as a good source for information? There are so many Beatles books out there with rock (no pun intended) solid information. Either way, it is cool to hear isolated tracks.

    • Anon

      There isn’t anything wrong with wikipedia. I trust a peer reviewed, constantly growing wealth of information sooner than I trust a book written by one or two people and edited by one.

  3. Yes, I’m sure it was George… because I cannot hear anything!!!

  4. This is a tough one when it comes to who played what. While Harrison did come up with the idea for the bass part on Drive My Car after hearing Otis Redding’s Respect, McCartney is the one who played it.

  5. “and I played that line on guitar and Paul laid that with me on bass.” am i the only one who has always read that quote to NOT say that George played the bass as everyone often assumes it implies. I’ve always read it as “I (george) played guitar and Paul played bass along with the guitar line i played”

  6. Scott Jennings

    Paul played bass on this track. George has said in many interviews that he had enough on his hands playing the guitar part while Paul doubled it on bass.

    Paul overdubbed the lead guitar later.

  7. Jeremy Cohen

    It would make sense that George played bass on this as it is similar in structure to his line on Two Of Us.

  8. i gotta admit, i think it’s pretty patchy. i know the sound wasn’t ideal but there’s some notes that just aren’t “hit”. dead notes=bad bassist.