First song learned?

[Triumph_Rock]

So I thought this might be an interesting topic for folks to talk about, maybe take some people back. What was the first song you learned to play on bass guitar? Was it the killer tune you just had to learn? Or the bands choice? Or did you learn it just because you digged the bassist who composed the music!?

Lets here the stories!?

Edited July 31, 2020 by Triumph_Rock

[paul_5]

First one I learned was ‘free will’ by Rush - it was in an edition of my brother’s guitar magazine, and the only bass music in the house. Not bad for starters!!

[stewblack]

Can't remember! I know the very first song I ever played on guitar was Do Anything You Wanna Do by Eddie & The Hot Rods. But when I came over from the darkside I was handed a set of some covers some originals and told to get cracking!

[Geek99]

Sitting on the dock of the bay, I played bass and my then-bass teacher played telecaster custom. At the end he said “youre better than you think”. He was wrong, but I appreciated it 

[musicbassman]

Sunshine of Your Love - Cream

1968 - my first band. We "rehearsed" at the drummer's parents incredibly scruffy and smelly house in Paignton, Devon.  All the curtains seemed to be permanently drawn so it was pretty dark, and it always smelt of wee.

Amplifiers?  - there was one, a Vox AC 30, which had been borrowed. It had six inputs, so there were two guitars, a bass and three mikes plugged in. Brilliant!

The mike stands were broomsticks which were propped upright by bricks. Then the tape recorder style mikes were sellotaped onto the tops of these.  Result!

Actually the 'band' knew two numbers, the other one was 'Walking on Sunset' by John Mayall.  One of the guitarists assured us that John Mayall was playing a "mouth organ" on this song, but he couldn't afford to buy one, let alone play it, so he used a kazoo instead....

Fantastic !      

[Dad3353]

My first bass line was played on my Hofner President guitar; an ambitious and delicate rendering of the Jefferson Airplane version of Donovan's 'Fat Angel', which we (The Martin Spicer Band....) performed at a pub opposite Hounslow Central tube station. We were too young to buy drinks. 'Only two notes..!' I hear you say, to which I reply 'Yes, but what two notes..!' Heady daze. 

[uk_lefty]

Can't remember the exact song. I had a learn bass book that included "sound like black Sabbath" with an iron man type riff. I remember learning should I stay or should I go early on as well as the Clash version of police and thieves. You really got me by the kinks should have been the first song I learned, it's very simple, but even 20 years on I'm still playing it live and easier ones than that: she sells sanctuary is just d c g, it's an in-joke in my band that all songs have to go d c g or we won't play them... You had to be there. Anyhoo, it's not all about flashy chops if you want to get paid to play in a band, far from it. If you want to be a YouTube star it's probably a different story but I wouldn't be knowing about that. 

[Black Coffee]

Li’l devil

by The Cult

 

closely followed by the rest of the album, so long ago now it’s a relic 😂

 

[Lozz196]

Would have been a Sex Pistols song, possibly I Wanna Be Me as it’s very easy.

[FinnDave]

I think the first song I learnt was Interstellar Overdrive, or possibly Fohat digs holes in space from Gong's Camembert Electrique. I learnt them both when I first started playing, because both are very easy.

[Treeb]

Think it was Ballad of the Beacon by Wishbone Ash.

[Oopsdabassist]

With or Without You, followed close by message in a bottle, by which time I had an audition for a band because they played the Police song, it was just a shame they didn't tell me it was in a different key...I had no idea what they meant.......I got the gig anyway...1st live event after 3 months of playing.....nerve racking and some bastid videoed it and bunged it on you tube.

Cut to 17 years later and finally I'm in a band that wants to do With or Without You lol!!!

[hiram.k.hackenbacker]

That would be this one....

I should add that I was a keys student in my early teens and my tutor had (what turned out to be) my first bass hanging in his wall. I was sufficiently distracted by it to get him to teach me this tune on it....the rest, as they say, it history 😂. I still have the bass.

Edited July 31, 2020 by hiram.k.hackenbacker

[Baxlin]

I’ve failed here, as I can’t remember the first song I learned /played on the bass, but Peggy Sue was the first I learned on guitar.  I’d been given a guitar, and I ‘acquired’ a Buddy Holly songbook and a book of 750 chord shapes.  It would be 1962-ish, in my early teens.

[Ed_S]

The first song I learned was Def Leppard - Animal. No real reason behind it; I was just listening to them a lot at the time and that track seemed to be as good a place to start as any.

Importantly, though, the first thing that I actually played along to was a TV theme tune because it happened to be playing as I'd just finished tuning my first bass after getting it home and out of the box for the first time. But then immediately afterwards I printed the tab for Animal and learned it. I quickly realised that I'd had much more fun instinctively playing along to 30 seconds of a recognisable theme tune belonging to a show I didn't even watch - something sportsy like match of the day or grandstand I think it was - than actually learning a song 'properly'.

Almost everything from that point forward has been played by ear as a result of just knowing the song from repeated listening. In fact, every song I've ever actually sat and learned since has been done that way because I don't like it, so I won't ever listen to it enough to know it organically, so I have to do it by the numbers.

[Bassfinger]

On the bass it would have been Sunshine of Your Love.

[Nail Soup]

Hhhhmmm hard to remember! The book I learnt from taught walking basslines in 12 bar patterns So I guess that could have been hundreds of songs! Then I started an originals band with a mate so we made up our own stuff. We eventually did a cover of Blitzkrieg Bop (The Ramones) so that must have been the first one I learned. 

[scalpy]

My dad showed me Keep on Running on a rubbish acoustic he had which needed a g clamp to play a barre chord. I had to be able to do that to 'qualify' for him buying a real bass. In reality this was his version of him buying his eldest son the trainset that reminded him of his youth, but backfired when he couldn't get the bass out of my hands and anyway I blew up the record player we used as an amplifier playing along to Hey Joe.

[Dazm66]

Transmission by Joy Division. I was hooked. If you’ll pardon the pun.  Then got a mate who could read music to call out each note of a 12 bar blues in the book I got with my first bass whilst I painstakingly worked out where that note was on the bass. 

[BlueMoon]

Smoke On The Water - Deep Purple. Easy to play badly!

[odysseus]

Surfing With The Alien by Joe Satriani. I was asked to learn it by some mates who converted me from guitar to bass. 

[Reggaebass]

It would have been Exodus or Natural mystic by Bob Marley and the wailers around 1978 , I then went on to learn the whole album, and I still play it now.

[la bam]

My very first band was 5 of us at 16, spending Saturdays in the drummers garage jamming and drinking. We couldnt play a note between us, but we all liked metal so tried learning what was in the current edition of guitar magazine or something similar. As I recollect one of them was Lemon Song by led zep.

Needless to say, that never worked and just turned into a drinking club!

First song I really learned was around 5 years later - Shes Electric by Oasis.

Edited August 1, 2020 by la bam

[Geek99]

15 minutes ago, la bam said:

My very first band was 5 of us at 16, spending Saturdays in the drummers garage jamming and drinking. We couldnt play a note between us, but we all liked metal so tried ...around 5 years later - Shes Electric by Oasis.

Were you any good for metal ?

[TheRev]

13 hours ago, musicbassman said:

Amplifiers?  - there was one, a Vox AC 30, which had been borrowed. It had six inputs, so there were two guitars, a bass and three mikes plugged in. Brilliant!

The mike stands were broomsticks which were propped upright by bricks. Then the tape recorder style mikes were sellotaped onto the tops of these.  Result!

Yes. This. Though the amplifier was a Sound City Fender Twin type thing.

I reckon my first song was Whole lotta Rosie by AC/DC. We also did Paranoid by Black Sabbath, but probably without the  instrumental section at the end.