Often hailed for reinventing the world of pop music production, The Beatles are famed for many musical innovations. From establishing their own record label to using a very early example of sampling, the band dedicated themselves to the pursuit of new musical technologies and techniques. However, their intense levels of innovation often caused the Fab Four some difficulties, particularly when it came to playing their complex compositions in a live environment.
During the early years of The Beatles, the band largely built their reputation on rejuvenating the world of pop, giving their own treatment to a variety of pre-existing hits. Even on their own original material, their music tended to follow the same pop formula that had worked for so many others. It was when the band started experimenting with sounds and influences that they became much more interesting and complex.
Albums like Revolver, Rubber Soul and, of course, Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band changed the landscape of rock and pop music indefinitely, telling the story of a band working well ahead of their time, particularly on Sgt. Pepper’s, on which The Beatles employed a wide variety of innovative, new techniques, in addition to their increasingly complicated song structures. The resulting record is undoubtedly among the greatest albums of all time, even if some of the songs were the cause of headaches for the band members.
The greatest strengths of The Beatles were usually related to songwriting rather than instrumental skill. While none of the members were at risk of being inept players, they certainly were not the most gifted within the context of the 1960s music scene. Nevertheless, Sgt. Pepper’s provided the Fab Four with multiple opportunities to show off the musical proficiency which was so often overlooked. Paul McCartney, in particular, filled the record with countless complicated basslines, most notably on ‘Being for the Benefit of Mr Kite!’
Taking unlikely inspiration from a 19th-century circus poster, ‘Being for the Benefit of Mr Kite!’ is a stand-out track on Sgt. Pepper’s thanks, in part, to McCartney’s stunning bassline. As anybody who has attempted to play the track will readily tell you, the track is incredibly difficult to perform in one go. Seemingly, though, its complexities only endeared the song to Macca, who called it “Probably my favourite bass line” during a Q&A.
“Because it’s complicated. It’s kind of a difficult bass line. And what’s really difficult is to sing it and play the bass at the same time,” McCartney continued, “Because your head goes that way and your fingers go [the other]. It’s a really sort of strange combination to do it, but it’s a melodic bassline, and I like it.” Luckily for the bassist, The Beatles had stopped performing live a year prior to the release of Sgt. Pepper’s, so he was not expected to play the song on stage.
Speaking to his love of the track, however, McCartney later introduced the song into his solo performances, giving himself quite the challenge of pulling off that tricky bassline. After introducing the song to his regular set, McCartney revealed to Rolling Stone in 2013, “‘Mr. Kite’ is such a crazy, oddball song that I thought it would freshen up the set. Plus, the fact that I’d never done it. None of us in The Beatles ever did that song (in concert)… That’s challenging.”
The challenge seemed to pay off, as ‘Being for the Benefit of Mr Kite!’ went on to become a definite fan-favourite of the former Beatle’s live shows. Seemingly, the nearly six decades since it was written have provided Macca with ample opportunity to master its performance, but even if he still struggled to play it, nobody is going to question the musical proficiency of a Beatle.
