What was the first song that featured an "octave" bassline?

like bach or some shit?

^don't think

No, I mean from "modern" pop-rock-electronic era.

They use it in Atomic by Blondie, for a little section. That's how I learned it. It's a disco thing.

are you sure it wasn't invented by autistic bass girl?

http://youtube.com/watch?v=lq4G3KRAuXc

on a serious note, didn't that electric prunes "i had too much to dream last night" have one? or was it a fifth, not an octave?

Going backwards in time:
"Love Rollercoaster", The Ohio Players 1975
"Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin)," Sly and the Family Stone 1969

This man was known for his use of a root-fifth-octave pattern, among the other tactics in his bag of tricks.

are you sure it wasn't invented by autistic bass girl?

Totally had me going on that.

fact check: autistic bass girl is a dude with long hair

...and, depressingly, the Seinfeld theme song has forever tempered my appreciation for slap bass

But don't mess with the great Mr. Spock bass theme from Star Trek: TOS.

hmmmm, I thought the Star Trek theme was your typical moog and brass drone. I'm woefully unfamiliar with that show...

Not the main theme of the show, Mr. Spock's personal theme.

"man who sold the world" does that in a couple spots, if i'm understanding this correctly. or maybe that's a guitar line

I don't think man who sold the world does it. If you're talking about that ascending bass riff, those aren't octaves.

oh duh

why does autistic bass man have tits?

They're spastits.

horrible, horrible. I'm sorry. I didn't even have the right disorder in mind. Will a moderator have mercy on me and delete that?

too late, god already saw it

besides, it was funny

This is actually a good technical/wonkish question. I can't think of anything before Sly Stone, myself. It makes me wonder if it's uniquely modern, "robotic" or something.

on a serious note, didn't that electric prunes "i had too much to dream last night" have one? or was it a fifth, not an octave?

It's octave. But surely not the first, if you're playing bass (guitar that is), it's kind of a natural thing to do, so there must be examples all the way back to the dawn of the electric bass.

Hmmm...dunno about "first", but maybe Holger Czukay in "Father Cannot Yell" and "Yoo Doo Right"?

Pretty sure Pink Floyd did it before Can, can't think what track tho

"Too Much To Dream" is a fifth.

It's funny how it's the simplest possible bassline you can have (aside from a single note, of course) from both rhythmic and melodic point of view, yet there doesn't seem to be that many old ('50s and '60s) songs with it. It's also ridiculously easy to do on a piano.

^yet there doesn't seem to be that many old ('50s and '60s) songs

Worst English ever!

Root-five, however, is on every country record and every other record ever.

beatles "tomorrow never knows"?

I don't know what "root-five" is, could you briefly explain that one James (or point to a link)? Thanks.

"The Revolution Will Not Be Televised" is an octave bass-line but isn't the kind of straight-8th pattern mentioned in the opening post (neither are some of the other songs mentioned in this thread, though).

"root-five" = going from the first note of a scale (the "root") to the fifth note of a scale

I want to revive this because I don't think anyone gave a good example of what I meant (ok, Blondie but nothing before that), which is a single note alternating between two successive octaves... probably the simplest possible bassline pattern after, well, just a single note just being repeated. Another example (starting at 0:30):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p8-pP4VboBk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1TH90211NXg

^nope! that's playing the upper note twice, the lower note once.

Pretty sure Pink Floyd did it before Can, can't think what track tho

Think Tom was thinking of this track?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9tr-0LgKreg

Maybe, but that's also not a good example: more than two notes are played (there's a middle note in there) and the time interval between each note is not the same.

It's an interesting question. In general, the pattern seems to have become common around 1977-78. Here's a nice example (bass settles down to a continuous octave pattern around 1:10):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=allB2VKX5YI

But if you go back to 1975 and 1976, the style of bass is usually somewhat different. In this example the octaves are suggested here and there but they are not continuous. (Actually, the bass DOES play continuous octaves in a section starting at around 2:47.):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-b7om2cQC7U

But then there's this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xBWXbF9VOJ8

And this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dW16A1Gs0ds

I am wondering if the idea of taking it one stage further, i.e. to construct a bassline ENTIRELY out of regimented eighth notes playing octaves, came from Europe (Silver Convention were German). I'm not saying Silver Convention were the first but they were certainly doing it in 1975.

aha! thanks dubmill!

This short article from 1981 does not answer the question, but does speak more about the developments leading to the octave "disco" bass line:

http://symposium.music.org/index.php?option=com_k2&view=item&id=1898:the-evolutionary-development-of-the-disco-bass-line-in-history-and-practice&Itemid=124

The author posits boogie-woogie, followed by big band, then the Motown "four to the bar" style of Jamerson's playing, then finally Hayes' Shaft led to the rhythmic development that, coupled with the boogie woogie octave notes in sequence, laid the foundation to what would be known as the disco bass line.

That's a good read, thanks, though I wish it was a little less technical. So I guess what I was referring to is called the "disco" bassline (at least according to that author).

There's a Mingus song that opens with an octave bassline. It will come to me.

The first couple of bars of "Purple Haze" does this.

I think it's E's Flat and Ah's Flat Too

So I guess what I was referring to is called the "disco" bassline

Ah, a bit of a misunderstanding. The way I framed my post was based on the idea that you were aware of the use of the "octave bassline" in disco and post-disco dance/pop music but you wanted to know when it was first used in precisely that manner in that musical context.

I am pretty sure that the bassline styles in disco evolved out of musical necessity. As that linked article says, a bassline built around eighth notes is the obvious way to go with a disco beat at a certain tempo. What remains an interesting question to me is how the occasional use of octaves to fill in got refined down to continuous octaves. I am going to look to see if I can find anything earlier than Silver Convention (1975) that does that. I am not considering things like "Purple Haze" because that is from a different musical context. (Octave patterns have been used in previous forms of music and, as the linked article says, you can trace the lines back through Tamla Motown and Boogie Woogie, but it's not directly relevant to the question of who did it first within the idiom of disco.)

Duh on me! Completely forgot about "Careful With That Axe Eugene"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AYMyxTFwuz8

The first Floyd track with an octave bassline would have been the intro of See Emily Play, no?

And Rain had an octave bassline in 66.

There's a whole section of 60's psychedelic bass playing that uses that 'Root -> Octave + Blues Box' style of playing, kinda exemplified by the Rain bassline, I wonder where McCartney picked that up from, Motown or Stax?

Beautifully parodied by Colin Moulding on the Dukes 'What in the World'

I'll have to dig through some records/files, in regards to the octave bassline in that particular italo/disco/new wave style. Fade to Grey by Visage is a big one, as far as influence on New Wave and Italo-Disco, but I'm sure there are electronic disco songs that precede it with that move.

Kraftwerk, "Ruckzuck" (not to mention, "Autobahn")

xpost how about Back To Nature by Fad Gadget? Not exactly disco obv, but predates Visage

I didn't realize it was that big of a thing? It's an easy way out of playing just one note for four bars. I lean on it a lot because I'm lazy.

I mean, here's an example. I cheat by going 1-2, 1-1-2 a little, but I'm pretty sure bass players were doing this long before Pink Floyd?

Kraftwerk, "Ruckzuck" (not to mention, "Autobahn")

if we're going this route, the "verses" of Can's "Mother Sky" have the quarter-note octave bassline

which is still different in its essential rhythm from the eighth-note octave bassline of disco

octave bassline discussed here as well:

track id - acid from 1981 or earlier, sounds like the knife

The ultimate rapprochement of Eurodisco and the American
original, though, came from a group from Australia and their Turkish
producer. Arif Mardin had resuscitated the Bee Gees’ sagging career
in 1975 with the album Main Course, which found Barry, Maurice,
and Robin Gibb trying their hand at Philly soul—inspired songs rather
than the dated Beatles and folk harmonies of their previous records.
The following year they recorded the similarly styled “You Should
Be Dancing” at Criteria Studios in Miami. While Dennis Byron’s
kick drum sound was watertight and the cowbells were suitably
metronomic, the track's Euro feel was tempered by the conga-heavy
break. There were also horns and chicken-scratch guitar riffs ga-
lore—you would have never heard that in Munich. What made the
track so European in feel, though, was the bass line, which was
clearly developed after listening to one polka record too many. The
superball bass line poings and bounces so much it could have been
lifted straight off of a happy hardcore track recorded in Rotterdam
in the early '90s.

As redolent as this bass line was of lederhosen and Maypole
dancing, it was actually originally developed by one of the goddamn
funkiest players ever to pluck the round wounds, Sly & the Family
Stone's Larry Graham. While Graham is credited with inventing the
technique of slap bass, and his abuse of the strings with a thumb that
must have been made of steel provided new ways for bravura players
to show off, his principal innovation had the exact opposite effect.
With its deceptively simple, singsong vision of racial harmony, “Every-
day People” topped the American R&B charts in February 1969.

While Sly was begging for tolerance because we're all “Everyday
People,” Graham grounded his equality plea with a bass line that
anyone with two hands and opposable thumbs could play. Graham
certainly didn't invent the one-note bass line on “Everyday People,”
but he made it perfectly acceptable in the framework of funk by
doubling every eighth-note he played, giving it a lurching but in-
credibly propulsive quality—sort of like popping the clutch on a car.

On the Jackson 5's 1975 remake of the Supremes‘ “Forever Came
Today,” Motown stalwart Brian Holland tool: this technique one
step further. Instead of the note merely repeating, the slurred note
was now doubled in a different octave." While relentlessly robotic,
the bass line on “Forever Came Today” also has a galloping qual-
ity—the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse riding grimly forward
toward Doom. This bass line is the backbone of nearly everything
we now think of as disco: Diana Ross's “Love Hangover,” Thelma
Houston's “Don't Leave Me This Way," Village People's “San Fran-
cisco (You’ve Got Me),” Donna Summer's “Try Me, I Know We
Can Make It” and, of course, the Bee Gees’ “You Should Be Danc-
ing.” While some 60 to 70 percent of all disco records used some
variation of this bass line, T-Connectiorfs 1977 hit, “Do What You
Wanna Do," is maybe its ultimate expression. During the main part
of the song, bassist Kirkwood Coaltley fleshes the riff out a bit with
some slap nms, but during the breakdown the bass becomes dizzy-
ingly hypnotic and incredibly precise. It's then doubled by a key-
board riff that follows the blueprint to the letter. While the
Bahamian T-Connection thought of itself as a funk band and not a
disco band, this was effectively the first step in the Frankenstein
creation of Hi-NRG, the ultimate automaton boogie that would
attempt to sever disco’s connection with funk.

Shapiro, Peter. Turn The Beat Around: The Secret History Of Disco London: Faber & Faber, 2005. 106-108. Scraped that sh1t hard off of g00gleb00ks y0.

Silver Convention get called a German group, but there were far more Austrians involved on both the production and vocal side.

Worth watching the whole thing, but Brian Holland's octave baseline comes in at 3m20s:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CTEGraARUxs
Jackson 5 covering "Forever Came Today" on Carol Burnett early June 1975

(Whoops, the song was released early June 1975, performance is Jan 24, 1976)

Not really accurate to describe the Bee Gees as an Australian group tbh

the Bee Gees (from Australia) and their authentic recreation of native Australian music (from their birth home of Australia) were definitely integral to the popularization of the octave bassline & helped bring Australian music to the world

Well, yes, the digeridoo might well have had some influence

this kc tune came out in 1973. check out the chorus

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JskDiT-aQRA

and of course there's this

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6oMFMRv5c3o

hooky is prob one of the earliest adapters of the octave bassline into a post punk context

dubmill, I was interested in finding out the origin of the octave bassline, strictly following the 1-2-1-2-1-2-1-2, pattern but not necessarily in the context of disco. "Careful with that Axe, Eugene" is a good example. I just remembered another one from 1967 (I think this one is 16th note?) :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=st_mJwP_D_8

Though I agree that the more interesting question is when it was first used in disco or pre-disco R&B or whatever.

(I think this one is 16th note?)

No, it's eighths. The interval is not an octave, though. It sounds like a 4th (interval, not divisions of a bar).

"Careful with that Axe, Eugene" is a good example

Of the 1-2-1-2 pattern, yes, but the notes are fourths.

Right, thanks for pointing that out! On the Pink Floyd one you mean the notes are fourths as in fourth of a bar, but still octave intervals, right?

Yes