The 77 Best Bass Lines of All Time (Picked by a Bassist)

You’re a new bass player looking for songs to improve your skills?

Or music lover with a thing for good bass lines?

Either way, you’ll find the 77 best bass lines of all time on this list – in no particular order.

1. Another One Bites the Dust – Queen.

Written by Queen’s bass player John Deacon, this bass line is iconic. Deacon actually recorded most of the instruments on the track too.

The song was only released as a single after the band was convinced to do so by Michael Jackson backstage at one of their concerts.

2. Money – Pink Floyd.

Cited widely as one of the best songs for bassists to learn, “Money” was released on Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon album in 1973.

“Money” and “Us and Them” were the only cuts on the album to feature saxophone.

3. Give it Away – Red Hot Chili Peppers.

Released in 1991, the song is based on the mantra “The more you give, the more you receive, so why not give it all away?”

Keidis also drew inspiration from his meeting with German singer Nina Hagen.

She gave him her jacket when she saw it interested him, saying that giving things away promotes positive energy.

Anthony Keidis sings “give it away” 68 times throughout the song.

4. Hysteria – Muse.

The bass line in “Hysteria” by Chris Wolstenholme was voted the best bass line of all time by a MusicRadar poll in 2011.

It was followed by “YYZ” by Rush and “Another One Bites the Dust” by Queen, both of which are featured on this list.

5. For Whom the Bell Tolls – Metallica.

The opening riff performed by Cliff Burton is often confused for a guitar. It’s actually bass with added distortion and a wah-wah pedal.

The song and lyrics were inspired by Ernest Hemingway’s novel of the same name.

6. Roundabout – Yes.

The original version of the song was 8 minutes long. It was edited down to 3 minutes and 27 seconds to be released as a single.

The song was written on the road, and the lyrics “Twenty-four before my love you’ll see I’ll be there with you” were a reference to lead singer Jon Anderson’s excitement to see his wife again, in only 24 hours.

7. My Generation – The Who.

Roger Daltrey’s stutter in the lead vocals wasn’t originally planned.

After trying to sing without stuttering – Daltrey later admitted to having a real stutter – the producers urged Daltrey to stutter the lyrics.

They thought it gave the track the effect of sounding like a British youth on speed.

8. Longview – Green Day.

Bassist Mike Dirnt admitted to writing the wacky bass line of “Longview” while on an acid trip.

He and lead singer Billie Joe Armstrong said they couldn’t quite remember the riff the morning after, and tried to reconstruct it as best as they could.

9. Peace Sells – Megadeath.

Frontman Dave Mustaine was homeless and living in the band’s rehearsal space when he wrote the lyrics to “Peace Sells.”

Having no paper on hand, he wrote the words with Sharpie on the wall.

Like many of Megadeath’s tracks, “Peace Sells” deals with Cold War politics and disillusionment.

10. Under Pressure – David Bowie & Queen.

Another instantly recognizable bass line from Queen bassist John Deacon, “Under Pressure” was released in 1981 in collaboration with David Bowie.

Freddie Mercury and Bowie were reported to have butted heads creatively during the recording of the track.

11. Feel Good Inc. – Gorillaz.

The featured rapper in “Feel Good Inc.” is Trugoy the Dove from De La Soul.

The windmill reference is to how love can make the world go round, and is the best way to feel good.

12. Ramble On – Led Zeppelin.

Robert Plant based some of the song’s lyrics on J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings with references to “Mordor” and “Gollum.”

The track was recorded in New York on Led Zeppelin’s first tour, and released in 1969.

13. Billie Jean – Michael Jackson.

With the kind of bass line that will stick in your head, “Billie Jean” is easy to dance to and not so difficult to play.

Jackson admitted to knowing the 1982 track would be a hit even while he was still writing it.

14. Attention – Charlie Puth.

“Attention” was the lead single from Puth’s album VoiceNotes.

Puth used an app called VoiceNotes to record songwriting memos to himself while he was on the road.

15. Ace of Spades – Motörhead.

The “Ace of Spades” refers to the dead man’s hand in poker, which is aces and eights. It was the had of Wild Bill Hancock when he was shot dead during a game of poker.

It’s also one of the most covered songs by punk and hardcore rock bands for its aggressive melody.

16. Badge – Cream.

Released in 1969 on the album Goodbye this song was written by Eric Clapton and George Harrison.

When Clapton saw Harrison’s notes for the song, he misread the title as “Badge” instead of the intended “Bridge.” They decided to name the song “Badge” instead.

17. Killing in the Name – Rage Against the Machine.

“Killing in the Name” was the band’s first single, released in 1993. It critiques the fact that many of the US police forces were members of the Ku Klux Klan.

The uncensored version of the song features the F-word 16 times.

18. Love Will Tear Us Apart – Joy Division.

The band didn’t see much commercial success but was critically acclaimed. The song was an ironic take on The Captain and Tennille’s “Love Will Keep Us Together.”

Lead singer Ian Curtis’ marriage was under strain due to an affair with a Belgian woman.

19. Walk on the Wild Side – Lou Reed.

The song, about cross-dressers who come to New York to be prostitutes, took on traditional views of gender roles in rock music.

It was released at a time when “glam rock” was popular, with male rock performers dressing in feminine styles.

20. Ain’t No Mountain High Enough – Marvin Gaye & Tammi Terrell.

“Ain’t No Mountain High Enough” was released in 1966 on Marvin Gaye’s United album. The track is usually recognized for its triumphant, energetic vocals.

But all that energy is underpinned by a classic bass line that every emerging bass player should attempt to master.

21. The Chain – Fleetwood Mac.

The track was spliced together from different studio recording sessions.

The bass line at around the three-minute mark was written by John McVie, who had planned to use it for another song.

Stevie Nicks wrote the lyrics about her failing relationship with Lindsey Buckingham.

22. I Want You Back – The Jackson 5.

The career-launching hit for the Jackson 5 was released in 1969, going to #1 in the U.S.

The song was originally meant to be titled “I Want to Be Free” but changed to “I Want You Back” to appear more like a love song.

23. Orion – Metallica.

“Orion” is considered one of the best performances by bassist Cliff Burton, who died 6 months after the album’s release when the band’s tour bus crashed.

The 1986 song is a reference to the star constellation Orion, as it contains imagery related to the night sky.

24. Humble – Kendrick Lamar.

Former US President Barack Obama is reportedly a huge fan of Lamar’s music.

25. Schism – Tool.

The “Schism” refers to the schism within the church, which was once holy and pure but now corrupted by self-serving people.

Tool only ever had two songs reach the Top 100 charts in the U.S., with “Schism” being one of them.

26. Super Freak – Rick James.

James wanted to write a silly song to add to the album Street Songs. He quickly put together “Super Freak” while in the studio, writing the bass line first.

MC Hammer sampled the same bass line in “U Can’t Touch This” which prompted James to sue. They settled, giving James songwriting credit on “U Can’t Touch This.”

27. Taxman – The Beatles.

Written by George Harrison, “Taxman” was inspired by the 1960s Batman television series.

It was released as the leading track on the album Revolver to show the band’s faith in Harrison’s songwriting abilities.

28. London Calling – The Clash.

“London Calling” has become a defining song for The Clash.

Singer Joe Strummer reportedly took many of the lyrics from catastrophic-sounding news stories he read so often.

The title was a reference to the BBC World Service’s opener on their international broadcasts during World War II.

29. Jeremy – Pearl Jam.

The song is based on a real person, Jeremy Delle, a 16-year-old student in Richardson, Texas who killed himself in front of his English class.

Eddie Vedder later reported that he could relate to the story, having had a classmate in middle school bring a gun to school and attempt to kill himself.

30. I Wish – Stevie Wonder.

Released as a hit single in 1976, “I Wish” is about Stevie Wonder’s childhood in the 1950s and 1960s. Wonder wrote and produced the song himself.

31. Dazed and Confused – Led Zeppelin.

Jimmy Page based this song on an acoustic version of the same name by Jake Holmes.

Page had altered enough of the melody, he felt, not to credit Holmes when Led Zeppelin released the song.

Holmes eventually filed a lawsuit, however, in 2010. They settled, and the songwriting credit now reads “Jimmy Page, inspired by Jake Holmes.”

32. Smoke on the Water – Deep Purple.

The title was inspired by an incident the band witnessed in Montreux, Switzerland during a Frank Zappa concert.

During the show, someone fired a flare gun setting the place on fire. Afterward, smoke was covering Lake Geneva, which the concert venue sat next to.

33. Rain – The Beatles.

Released in 1966 on Past Masters, Vol. 2, the song takes its unusual sound from playing a tape backwards – one of the first to do so.

Ringo Starr has also said he considers “Rain” one of his best drumming performances with The Beatles.

34. Aqualung – Jethro Tull.

“Aqualung” was based on photos vocalist and flute player Ian Anderson’s wife took of transient men.

The character of Aqualung was conceived by Anderson as a homeless man with poor hygiene, based on the photos.

The song is a commentary about the homeless population, evoking the guilt we often feel in not knowing how to treat homeless people and beggars.

35. Truckin’ – Grateful Dead.

Released on the album American Beauty in 1970, Grateful Dead members Jerry Garcia, Phil Lesh, and Bob Weir, along with their lyricist Robert Hunter, are all credited songwriters on “Truckin’.”

Members of the band were arrested in a drug bust in New Orleans in January 1970, inspiring the line in the song “Busted, down on Bourbon Street.”

36. Boom Boom Pow – Black Eyed Peas.

According to will.i.am, the song’s one note “Boom” plays 168 times.

37. The Joker – Steve Miller Band.

In 2000, Steve Miller let rapper Shaggy sample the bass line from “The Joker” for his song “Angel.”

The line “I’m a midnight toker” is a reference to marijuana use, and in 2012 Spin magazine declared the song as the most successful song about pot of all time.

38. Treasure – Bruno Mars.

The disco-inspired song is driven by the bass line. Mars has said of this track that he wanted to be free to record many different genres.

39. Riders on the Storm – The Doors.

The 1971 “Riders on the Storm” is the last song Jim Morrison recorded, as he died in France a few weeks after.

The song is said to evoke images of a lone, fearsome hitchhiker that Morrison based off of his own college experiences.

40. YYZ – Rush.

“YYZ” takes its name from the transmitter code of the Toronto International Airport. The intro to the song is also Morse code for “YYZ.”

Bass player Geddy Lee’s performance on this track has been widely acclaimed as one of the best in rock history, with some even contending that his bass playing improves when he’s not singing.

41. Can’t Feel My Face – The Weeknd.

The track was nominated for two Grammy awards and declared the best song of 2015 by Rolling Stone.

42. Jenny Was a Friend of Mine – The Killers.

Allegedly, “Jenny Was a Friend of Mine” was an early composition the band worked on together but didn’t come back to for a while.

One day, bass player Mark Stoermer started to play the chorus of the song again, and they were able to complete it together.

43. Refugee – Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers.

“Refugee” and the whole 1979 album Damn the Torpedoes are reflective of Tom Petty’s frustration with the music industry at the time.

He and guitarist Mike Campbell initially struggled to put together the track, feeling pressure from the record company and being unable to find the right sound.

44. Seven Nation Army – The White Stripes.

Technically, this song shouldn’t be on this list – the track wasn’t recorded with a bass.

The distinctive “bass line” in the song is actually a guitar with octave effect, made to sound like a bass.

The song’s title is also apparently what Jack White mistakenly referred to the Salvation Army as when he was a child.

45. Sir Duke – Stevie Wonder.

The 1976 track is Wonder’s tribute to his musical inspiration Duke Ellington, who died in 1974.

The song also references Ella Fitzgerald, Louis Armstrong, Count Basie and Sodarisa Miller.

46. Uptown Funk – Mark Ronson (featuring Bruno Mars).

Mars and Ronson cowrote the song. It took over 6 months to get it finished, because Mars was on tour at the time.

47. The Guns of Brixton – The Clash.

“The Guns of Brixton” was written and sung by bass player Paul Simonon, who initially expressed concerns about handling the vocals.

The other members of the band wanted him to sing since they were his lyrics.

Simonon wrote the track about the tensions in his hometown of Brixton in South London.

48. The National Anthem – Radiohead.

Bassist Thom Yorke performed the bass line in “The National Anthem” based on a riff he developed when he was 16.

The original title of the song was “Everyone” but later changed to “The National Anthem” since part of the British anthem is played near the end.

49. Only in Dreams – Weezer.

Released in 1994 on The Blue Album, “Only in Dreams” is about the narrator’s love for a girl in his dream. The song lasts nearly 8 minutes, Weezer’s longest cut.

50. La Grange – ZZ Top.

The song was based on a real whorehouse in La Grange, Texas, where bass player Dusty Hill said he’d visited as a young man.

The local population considered it as a respectable, time-honored institution, and were greatly dismayed when it was shut down only a few months after the song was released.

51. Good Times – Chic.

“Good Times”, with its distinctive bass line, was frequently used as the instrumental background for MCs in the burgeoning rap movement in New York City in the 1970s.

The first ever chart-topping, recorded rap single, “Rapper’s Delight” was recorded in 1979 using Chic’s “Good Times” as its foundation.

52. Cissy Strut – The Meters.

A pioneering funk band from New Orleans, the Meters immortalized their R&B bass lines, Cissy Strut in particular, on their self-titled debut album in 1969.

The song was first penned by guitarist Leo Nocentelli as the group’s opener when they played at clubs on Bourbon Street.

It wasn’t officially given the name “Cissy Strut” until they recorded it years later.

53. Sunshine of Your Love – Cream.

Bass player Jack Bruce has said that the famous bass riff in “Sunshine of Your Love” was inspired by a Jimi Hendrix concert.

He and Pete Brown, a beat poet, wrote the song after having been up all night working on it.

Bruce started playing the riff on his stand-up bass around sunrise – inspiring the title of the song.

54. No One Knows – Queens of the Stone Age.

When “No One Knows” reached #1 on the modern rock charts, Dave Grohl became the first person the hold a #1 spot from three different groups.

He was also drummer for Nirvana and frontman for the Foo Fighters.

55. Stand By Me – Ben E. King.

“Stand By Me” was originally based on a gospel hymn, but reworked as a contemporary song, released in 1961.

The track helped establish Ben E. King as a solo artist after having left the Drifters.

It saw a resurgence in popularity after the release of the 1986 film Stand By Me produced by Rob Reiner and starring River Phoenix.

56. Peter Gunn Theme.

The song, originally written by Peter Mancini for the TV series Peter Gunn, was the first theme song from a TV series to reach the Hot 100.

Ray Anthony did a cover of the song, taking it to #8. Since then, it’s been covered by my many different artists.

57. I Got You (I Feel Good) – James Brown.

“I Got You (I Feel Good)” was the only of James Brown’s 91 Hot 100 chart entries to make it to #1.

What became Brown’s signature song was reworked from a track called “I Found You”, recorded by Brown’s backup singer Yvonne Fair.

58. Livin On a Prayer – Bon Jovi.

For the 1986 track, songwriter Desmond Child was brought in to give the song a more pop sound.

Apparently, Jon Bon Jovi wasn’t convinced by “Livin’ on a Prayer”, wanting to leave it off the album Slippery When Wet.

He changed his mind after having met with some teenagers; the song ended up becoming incredibly popular with working-class young people.

59. Can’t Stop the Feeling! – Justin Timberlake.

Timberlake wrote this song with Swedish songwriter Max Martin, whom he’d worked with during his time in N’Sync.

60. Come Together – The Beatles.

The song originated as a request from Timothy Leary, a psychologist running for governor of California, to John Lennon.

Lennon struggled to write a song according to Leary’s campaign slogan “Come Together, Join the Party.”

It was Paul McCartney who suggested slowing the temp and adding the bass line.

61. My Sharona – The Knack.

The best-selling single of 1979, “My Sharona” was based on Sharona Alperin, whom Doug Fieger was trying to woo.

They eventually started dating but broke up after 4 years. Alperin is the woman posing on the cover of the track’s single, holding the Get the Knack album.

62. Come as You Are – Nirvana.

The song is based on Killing Joke’s 1985 song “Eighties.”

Killing Joke considered taking legal action after “Come as You Are” was released but refrained when Kurt Cobain passed away.

Cobain’s hometown, Aberdeen, Washington, put up a sign in 2005 reading “Welcome to Aberdeen. Come as You Are.”

63. Down on the Corner – Credence Clearwater Revival.

Allegedly, bass player Stu Cook struggled to get the bass line right on this track.

For “Down on the Corner” the group took on the persona of fictional jug band Willy and the Poor Boys.

The song was the only cut on the album that really played up the concept.

64. The Lemon Song – Led Zeppelin.

Taking from blues song “Killing Floor” by Howlin’ Wolf, the bass line of “The Lemon Song” is supposedly almost entirely improvised by bassist John Paul Jones.

65. Rude – Magic!

“Rude” was the band’s debut hit single. Frontman Nasri Atweh claims it was inspired by a rough encounter with an ex-girlfriend.

66. By the Way – Red Hot Chili Peppers.

The song was sampled for an electro-house track by Peter Gelderblom in 2007.

Despite their usual resistance to their songs being sampled, the Red Hot Chili Peppers enthusiastically supported the electro-house release.

67. Brick House – The Commodores.

When the group needed another song for their self-titled album, trumpet player William King was tasked with writing one.

The story goes that he fell asleep without any lyrics, and woke up with a pad of paper, the lyrics to the song “Brick House” written out.

His wife, Shirley Hanna-King, was also a songwriter, and had penned the song for her husband.

68. Hard Times – Paramore.

The lyrics of “Hard Times” were inspired by Hayley Williams’ personal and professional difficulties during the final stages of production for the album After Laughter.

69. Josie – Steely Dan.

From the 1977 album Aja, “Josie” is the story of a young woman in a blue-collar neighborhood that all the men are in love with.

70. Short Skirt Long Jacket – Cake.

Cake lead singer John McCrea has said the song is about wanting and looking for two opposing features in the same person.

The song was released in 2001 on the album Comfort Eagle.

71. Sweet Emotion – Aerosmith.

When creating their Toys in the Attic album, producer Jack Douglas asked if any of the bandmates had a new riff they could work on.

Tom Hamilton came up with the bass line that “Sweet Emotion” was later based around.

72. You Can Call Me Al – Paul Simon.

The song and the whole album Graceland are about Paul Simon’s experiences working with musicians in South Africa during the apartheid era.

Graceland won a Grammy for album of the year in 1988.

73. Hey Joe – Jimi Hendrix.

“Hey Joe” was originally written by singer Billy Roberts in the early 1960s, covered by several artists.

Hendrix recorded his version after hearing a slower, folk version of the song by Tim Rose.

74. Feels – Calvin Harris.

“Feels” is loaded with star power, featuring Big Sean, Katy Perry, and Pharrell Williams. It was also Calvin Harris’ 8th single to reach #1 in the UK.

75. Cake by the Ocean – DNCE.

The cake in “Cake by the Ocean” has a very noncommittal meaning – frontman Joe Jonas has said it could be interpreted, however, you like.

76. I Will Possess Your Heart – Death Cab for Cutie.

Band members considered this 8-minute track a departure from their earlier work.

The first 5 minutes of the song is instrumental, which was built on the bass line provided by Nick Harmer.

77. Voyager – Daft Punk.

“Voyager” appeared on the French duo’s album 2001 Discovery.

The music video for the song – like the rest of the Discovery album – was a scene from the film Interstella 5555: The 5tory of the 5ecret 5tar 5ystem, featuring the song rather than dialogue.

Conclusion

There you have it – the 77 best bass lines of all time. If a list like that doesn’t make you want to rock out, then what will?