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Since our last letter, the site has grown: an ear-training app, eleven live videos from Convoitise, a second album in the works, kept strictly secret… and two new bands joining the Yellow Leaf Music family.

Here is a summary of the articles published on yellow-leaf-music.com. And in our “A Legendary Track” column, a bass line that everyone has in their ears.

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A legendary track

After Billy Joel’s “Honesty”, we look back at a song that left its mark on music: its story, how it was made, its legacy. Today, a song famous for its bass line: “Hey Bulldog”.

“Hey Bulldog” · The Beatles

Album Yellow Submarine (January 1969) · recorded on February 11, 1968 · produced by George Martin

On February 11, 1968, the Beatles gathered in EMI’s Studio Three (now Abbey Road) to film a promo for “Lady Madonna”. In the end they recorded something else: “Hey Bulldog”, which John Lennon had started as “Hey Bullfrog” when United Artists asked for one more song for the film Yellow Submarine. Paul McCartney helped finish the lyrics. Ten takes in ten hours, and the tenth was the keeper.

It all starts with a piano riff played in octaves by Lennon, doubled by two guitars and by the bass down low: it is one of the few Beatles songs built on a piano riff rather than a guitar one. The band also had fun: near the end of the basic track, Paul started barking to make John laugh, and the song became “Hey Bulldog”. The barks and shouts stayed on the record.

🎸 The bass, up close

Look closely at McCartney’s line (from a fan-made tab) and everything is about economy. In the verses he hammers a B in eighth notes, almost like a pedal point, on the D string, with little steps down to A and G sharp before climbing back: the bass plays the piano riff, and gives it momentum. In the chorus he drops to the low E string to plant the B, and slides into it from the fifth (F sharp), a singer’s gesture that “pulls” the tonic. Between choruses the line climbs step by step on the A string, with the low B as an anchor, before sliding back down. The ending hammers high eighth notes on an F sharp, broken up by muted notes.

As for the tone, no effect is documented, and that may be the best part: to our knowledge McCartney was then playing his Rickenbacker 4001S, with a fuller, snappier sound than his famous Höfner, and all the character comes from the playing: muted notes, slides, hammer-ons and pull-offs that make the riff sing, plus the Abbey Road recording. Engineer Geoff Emerick, by the way, judged it his most inventive playing since Sgt. Pepper.

Long thought of as a minor track, the song has been reappraised: “a minor classic” for biographer Barry Miles, “a tough and funky piano-driven rocker” for Pitchfork. Dave Grohl, who calls it his favourite Beatles song, played it with Jeff Lynne at the 2014 Grammy Awards.

Learn more about the song

Listen to our artists

Each artist has an “all the links” page (streaming, videos, concerts):

• Hervé Dupuis
• Convoitise
• Solfea
• Phil. Guénin
• François Junel
• OD · Jaufré Darroux
• The Crooked Nails
• Jackie Darling

See you soon, and happy listening,
The Yellow Leaf Music team