The moment Paul McCartney was reunited with his beloved Höfner 500/1 bass 50 years after it was stolen was captured on camera by the BBC as part of a new 90-minute documentary that charts the hunt to get it back.
McCartney’s iconic violin bass, which he bought during the Beatles’ Hamburg residency for £30, became an extension of him and is his most iconic instrument. It can be heard on early Beatles hits, including She Loves You, and survived the end of the Beatles, staying with him as he set to work with Wings.
It was during a recording session in October 1972 that it was stolen out of the back of a van, leaving recording engineer Ian Horne with the difficult task of telling McCartney that his cherished four–string was gone.
What happened to it remained unknown for another 50 years, until the Lost Bass Project was formed to hunt it down. The media attention it got led to its discovery in an English attic a year later, along with some much-needed answers.
The BBC has now turned the story into a new feature-length documentary, featuring interviews with McCartney, his close friend Klaus Voormann, and Elvis Costello, as well as roadies, journalists, and others who helped with its search.
Vitally, it captures the moment the bass returns home to Sir Paul. “50 years since you last played that,” the video is captioned.
There’s a satisfying click as the hard case is opened up, sounding like only an ancient case can, before McCartney claps joyously and shouts, “Wow! Here it is.”
The bass had received some TLC before returning to McCartney for good, with a semi-retired, UK-based craftsman, Martin Harrison, duly called upon.
“It was unplayable,” a post on McCartney’s website reads. “It was a real mess. The neck had cracked and split, it had the wrong machine heads, and the pickups didn't work. So, we set about restoring it. Working with Höfner, we had to decide whether to restore it to its brand-new condition or to its ‘used’ condition from 1972, when it was stolen.
“There’s a great photo of Paul from the 1960s, where he’s in the studio, and you can see the bass in its repaired condition with the red sunburst-style spray, and Paul said, ‘I like that. I think we should leave it as it is, and just get it working.’”
That’s exactly what they did, and there’s a real joy in McCartney’s eyes as he runs his hands up and down its fretboard for the first time in over half a century.
Harrison dropped a handwritten note into the case, too: “Many times I've had the pleasure of putting music back into old, broken instruments,” it says. “It's been an absolute joy to do that with your bass.”
The bass eventually made its grand return to the stage with a little help from Ronnie Wood and Ringo Starr, while Bass Player has met up with the man who reunited McCartney with the instrument. Now, she’s definitely not leaving home.
