Come and Get Your Love Bass Tab

I've been listening a lot lately to a song called "Come & Get Your Love" by Redbone. Not because I just discovered it as a result of Hollywood's having to dig deep into the vaults for their lack of modern-day creativity. But because I've known this song for many years and it's been in my iTunes library for a long time. And because I like to revisit some of the songs in my library from time to time and I end up getting hooked on them either again or even for the first time. With this song, this is the first time I've been hooked on it.

It is a shame that great songs such as this one can only get new life by getting placed in a movie or commercial. It's nice that younger generations can hear it for the first time. Heck, this song isn't even from my generation so I had to discover it some way. I personally do not watch any new movies so I had no idea this song was recently featured in a flick. The only reason I now know is because I searched for some info about it online and I came across these repeated phrases which made no sense to me. Eventually I learned that the phrases were the title and character of the movie the song was in.

Anyway, this post is not so much to rag on Hollywood or the entertainment industry, though I have plenty I could write about that. It's actually because I have been listening carefully to the bass line of 'Come and Get Your Love' and trying to figure it out. I think I now have figured it out and I thought about uploading a cover video on YouTube. I decided to check out if there were other bass covers of this song already on there. Lo and behold, of course there were. I checked out about 5 videos and only one is by a guy who's actually old enough to have been around when that song came out. The other 4 were without doubt way too young. Again, odds are they know the song because of the film. That's the power of Hollywood. But I'm going off course again.....So the thing is none of the 5 videos feature them playing the bass part as I am hearing it on the original recording. A bit different in fact. Now I don't know if their intent is to just play their own version of it or to show others how to play it. But as for me, I think I have figured out the bass line and I want to show how to play it. While I haven't made a cover video yet I have tabbed it out and it is included here. Once I do make the video I will link to it here.

Here is the intro. I don't think there are any debates regarding this part:

G  :----------------|----------------|----------------|----------------|
D  :----------------|----------------|----------------|----------------|
A  :5---2-0-5---2-0-|--5-2-0-5-5-2-0-|5---2-0-5---2-0-|--5-2-0-5-5-2-0-|
E  :----------------|----------------|----------------|----------------|

Note that the intro does not have to be played all on the A string. I myself prefer to play the B & A notes on the E string. I tabbed it out this way because it looks as though Pat Vegas plays it all on the A string.



Now the verse part. This is where I'm hearing different notes from what everyone else on YouTube is playing. I listened to this very carefully before checking out anyone else's interpretation. I tabbed out the first 4 measures because the 2nd and 4th measures are different by one note. But after playing measures 1 through 4 you keep repeating measures 3 & 4 up to the chorus.

G  :----------------|----------------|----------------|----------------|
D  :----------------|----------------|----------------|----------------|
A  :--------------4-|5---5---2---2-0-|--------------4-|5---5-4-2---2-0-|
E  :0-2-0-3-5-4-5---|------2---------|0-2-0-3-5-4-5---|----------------|



Here is the chorus part leading back into the verse.

G  :----------------|----------------|---------------------------|
D  :----------------|----------------|---------------------------|
A  :--------------4-|5---5---2---2-0-|---------------------------|
E  :0-2-0-3-5-4-5---|------2---------|0-0--0-2-2--2-3-3--3-5-5--5|

G  :----------------|---------------------------|----------------|
D  :----------------|---------------------------|----------------|
A  :5---5---2---2-0-|---------------------------|--------------4-|
E  :------2---------|0-0--0-2-2--2-3-3--3-5-5--5|0---0-3-5---5---|

G  :----------------|
D  :----------------|
A  :5---5-4-2-------|
E  :----------------|

So you would play measures 1 & 2 once and then measures 3 & 4 several times followed by measures 5, 6 & 7 which take you back into the verse.

That's pretty much the whole thing and I believe it's pretty close to the original so I'm sticking to it. Video to come soon.

EDIT--Here is the video:

'Song For A Friend' on YouTube

I still want to post here with some level of regularity despite the hardship I am going through right now. Writing here and focusing on my music is actually quite therapeutic. I just wish I had all the time and energy necessary to be devoted to these things. I notice that many of the blogs that I follow post a lot more frequently than I do. I really do hope that things work out to a level where I will have the necessary means in all respects to keep all this going.

Recently I uploaded to YouTube a song I made several years back. This song has been on soundcloud for a while but I never really spread it around that much. This was a special project creation for a young friend who died from cancer in his teens. Some mutual friends decided to create a tribute to him on what would have been the commemoration of his birthday. I decided to contribute a song. Some songs come fast--words and melody--other songs come very slow. This one came fast and it's a good thing it did because the target date for this tribute was his birthday which was not very far off. The recording and everything was finished rather quickly and in time.

I have thought several times about changing some of the lyrics to make for less specific details and perhaps creating a wider audience appeal. I feel the song has tremendous pop sensibilities and I drew inspiration from at least 2 songs--'Leaving Ninety-Nine' by Audio Adrenaline and 'February' by Ten Shekel Shirt--that I like very much. (In fact, the title of the Ten Shekel Shirt song influenced me to originally title the song in a similar fashion. I have gone on to change the title several times). However, as I mentioned before, I'm not very keen on trying to re-work old songs, or at least old songs which have already been recorded. There are a few things I could do to make the recording sonically superior. But as far as a re-write, there are no plans for that unless I received a professional suggestion to do so.

As it stands the song is officially called "Song For A Friend." Here it is:




On this recording I used 2 guitars which I no longer own. One was the emerald green Carvin CT-6 and the other was a Rickenbacker 350V63. I'm not completely sure but there may have been a third guitar used. I did not keep recording notes at that time so I can only go by memory. Bass used was a Fender Jazz bass. This song also features some prominent slide guitar playing which I incorporated during a slide phase I was going through. I certainly do plan to add more slide to my recordings as I see fit.

So what do you think of the song? Someone upon hearing this song for the first time said it sounded like the Beatles. I found that to be interesting.