Artist:
Taylor Swift
Bassist:
Tim Marks
About the song:
Tim Marks is a master of the bass who always knows what to play and what to leave out. The entire song is a study in the discipline of thinking of the song, album, artist and producer. The closest thing to a fill is the two notes (yep, read that again… two notes!) in bar 110 that lead into the final four bars.
“…I think that it’s fun making an album, knowing that two days before you’re scheduled to have the last master in, and everything finished, and they’re about to go print up the booklets, I can write something, call up my producer, we can get in the studio, put a rush on it, get an overnight mix, and that can be a last-minute addition to the record. I’ve had that happen on both my first and second album, the last minute, 11th hour songs. …’Love Story’ wasn’t technically the last one, but it was very, very last minute. The two songs that were completely last minute were, on the first record, “Should Have Said No,” and on the second album, “Forever and Always.” Both of them had to do with something really, really dramatic and crazy happening to me and me needing to address it in the form of music.”
Taylor Swift
As for gear on the session, Tim says that he used the same Universal Audio 6176 channel strip (plus engineers choice of additional DI) for the whole album, but for this song used a Lakland 55-94 (5 string with soapbar/jazz style pickups).
Also, check out the other song from the Fearless album, You Belong With Me.
The transcription:
