It’s another turn around the band for this week’s Song Lyric Sunday, as Jim is asking us to play a song that features a great bass line. Read all about it in his post, Sonic Glue. Like drummers, bass players tend to get overlooked by many, but there have been some really great ones down the years. There are loads that I could have chosen for this, but I’ve decided to go with a song from more than fifty years ago, from my formative musical years, as they don’t come much better than this:

Until I started preparing this piece I didn’t even know of that video, and had thought I was going to have to use an audio-only clip. I’m so pleased I found this, though: it’s amazing! Before I forget, here are the lyrics:

Walk On The Wild Side was a track on Lou Reed’s second album, Transformer, which was released in November 1972, a month after I went to uni. It’s funny how our minds play tricks on us, isn’t it: if I’d been pressed to guess when this came out I’d have gone for my later schooldays, maybe 1969 or 1970. No matter, it’s still a fantastic song, and that insidious bass line is brilliant in the way it underpins Lou’s laconic vocals. The album peaked at #29 in the US but did better here in the UK, reaching #13. The song was released at the same time as the lead single, as a double A-side with Perfect Day: now that’s what I call value for money as a single purchase! It was a hit on both sides of the Atlantic, at #16 in the US and #10 in the UK, and no doubt that helped the album’s sales too, though the single alone sold more than 600k copies in the UK: the album has been certified Triple Platinum here. The lyrics of Walk on the Wild Side were, as Wikipedia note,  groundbreaking and risqué for their time, telling stories not usually told in rock songs up to then and containing references to prostitution, transgender people, and oral sex. Lou is quoted as saying  “I always thought it would be kinda fun to introduce people to characters they maybe hadn’t met before, or hadn’t wanted to meet,” and he sure did that! Transformer was produced by David Bowie and was recorded at Trident Studios in London, which probably explains why a number of British musicians played on it, notably Herbie Flowers, who gave us the wonderful bass on this track, and Ronnie Ross who is credited for the saxophone.

As is often my habit, I’m playing you a second song today. This one might not seem an obvious choice, but underneath the fabulous harmony vocals narrating the song’s story, listen out for some wonderful bass playing that drives it along:

That was, of course, The Beach Boys with Sloop John B, which was on their iconic Pet Sounds album, which was released in May 1966 and made #10 in the US and #2 here in the UK. Sloop John B had already been released as a single two months earlier, peaking at #3 in the US and #2 in the UK. The band played very few of the instruments on the album and none at all on this single: this was all due to the collective of session musicians known as the Wrecking Crew, who have featured here before. Their bass player is Carol Kaye, who is now 89 and enjoyed a career of more than 65 years. It is estimated that she has played on more than 10,000 songs, many of which have been big hits. Remember the bass line on River Deep, Mountain High? That was Carol, and there have been many others. The song itself is a Bahamian folk song from Nassau, for which a transcription was published in 1916 by Richard Le Gallienne, and Carl Sandburg included a version in his The American Songbag in 1927. There have been many recordings of the song since the early 1950s, with variant titles including I Want to Go Home and Wreck of the John B. Al Jardine is credited with introducing the song to the band after he heard the 1958 version by The Kingston Trio, which was released under the title of The Wreck of the John B. Apparently Brian Wilson took some persuading to do the song: I’m glad Al managed it!

That’s it for today. I’ll see you again for a rather special bit of nostalgia in Tuesday Tunes 😊