Paul McCartney is thrilled to find his bass again after 50 years
«Woah! Here it is.” And Paul McCartney is thrilled to find his bass again after fifty years. The video, shared by BBC Arts, is among the most moving things you can find online today: the clip is taken from the documentary “McCartney – The hunt for the lost bass”, broadcast by the BBC in the United Kingdom last Saturday. The docu-film, directed by Arthur Cary and written by Naomi Jones and Scott Jones, tells the story of the former Beatle’s “lost” bass.
The bass in question is a Höfner violin-shaped bass, model 500/1, purchased by Paul McCartney in 1961 during one of the Beatles’ residencies in Hamburg. With that bass, in addition to playing in all subsequent performances – including the 292 at the Cavern in Liverpool – McCartney, as told by Rockol, recorded all the Beatles’ songs until 1963. In 1963, then, the future Baronet purchased a second Höfner bass, similar to the previous one but of a later model, and decided to keep the first as a reserve instrument. Until 1972, while Wings were rehearsing in a hall in the Ladbroke Grove neighborhood of London, someone cut the lock on the van where the band’s instruments and amplifiers were kept, and among other things took possession of the 1961 Höfner bass.
McCartney’s “missing” bass began to be the subject of a search undertaken starting in 2018 by Nick Wass, an employee of Höfner, who by putting together various clues and testimonies managed to recover the instrument, which was found – in terrible conditions – in the attic of a house in Hastings, Sussex, probably that of the son of the person who had physically stolen the instrument back in 1972. Paul McCartney’s first Höfner bass was then returned to Paul, who had it restored and returned to play it live for the first time on stage at the O2 Arena in London on 19 December 2024: the video, taken from the documentary, immortalizes the very moment in which Paul finally embraces his bass again.
