First Time Hearing HÜSKER DÜ - I Wasn’t Expecting This

Added: 2026-05-06

[00:00:00]53 on the fifth. Now it's the one.

[00:00:06]Man, this is one of the coolest baselines I've heard in a while in terms of like inverting everything, not really giving you that root note. It kind of reminds me of the crafting of some of those Mottown baselines.

[00:00:19]Welcome back to Low University. This band has been on my list forever because sometimes I'll hear a lot of buzz about a band in the comments and then suddenly nothing and I kind of forget about them.

[00:00:27]today's band, Husker 2, who formed all the way back in 1979, but didn't even make it one decade before calling it quits at a show in December of 1987.

[00:00:36]Now, unique band names always intrigue me, and the backstory on this one was a bit endearing, originating during a rehearsal of the song PsychoKiller by the Talking Heads. They were unable to recall the French portions sung in the original, and instead started shouting any foreign language words they could remember, including the title of the popular 1950s memory-based game, Husker Doo. The name stuck and they slapped some heavy metal umlauss on it and called it a day. But it's my first time hearing them today with their track Sorry somehow which is from their fifth studio album Candy Apple Gay released in 1986. Off we go.

[00:01:23]Heat. Heat.

[00:01:35]touch you. I got you out of my nothing more cool than a baseline that has its own independent story going on. I mean, it's very detached from everything else. And I think the vocals in guitar can be quite basic in comparison. The bass is really doing a lot of moving here. And you know, I haven't really used the word inversion in a while when talking about a baseline. It's been a while. I think the bass player that does the most inverting out of anybody I've heard is probably lag wagons Jesse Bugleionone.

[00:02:31]Not to get off topic, but this line reminds me some of the stuff he does there where he'll start on a root note.

[00:02:38]So if we're in C, the bass starts on C, right? That's just what you do.

[00:02:41]then suddenly go up to I'm still in drop D from the last video on glass jaw. Give me a second. Okay. Yeah, film these videos back to back. What I was saying was bass player plays C when the chord C, right? So, but it there's always the chance for a bass player to go up to the E while the chord is still C. So, you get that first inversion sound which kind of has this sound.

[00:03:04]So, instead of C bass being in the C being in the bass, you put E in the bass, it has this sound.

[00:03:11]versus this. That's normal. This is first inversion.

[00:03:16]Still see different arrangement of the notes. That's all that means. So, what's happening here is I think he'll hit a note and then go down to like a third in the chord or the fifth in the chord. And he's using that approach to make that melody in the baseline. It's a great way to do it. You take three chords, find all of their notes. So, it' be a minimum of nine, right? Triads have three notes, three chords. So, you now have nine notes. you can kind of slither around, figure something out. So, I like this approach here. And it gives kind of an upside down feel to the chords. It doesn't really lean into the chords with much certainty. It kind of deviates from them really quickly. So, it could be the normal chord, it could be the first inversion, but it's giving it that it's giving it that rub sound. And again, the vocals and the guitar are kind of quite basic in comparison. So, it's a cool way of writing. I just want to start this one over. All right, let's see what the guitar is specifically doing. Going to try to tune the bass out. It'll give me more information.

[00:04:13]C B flat major down to A minor. It's kind of weird.

[00:04:31]It's so weird to tell what that is. I think it's F major with A in the bass.

[00:04:36]So again, it's this sound.

[00:04:40]I think the guitar is just going F, C, G, A minor. I know A minor is correct. I know there's a G. I just can't figure out those first two. And it largely has to do with how the bass is competing with it. And the whole point is maybe you're not supposed to really feel it be so certain. So that's a cool like utility of the baseline here, right?

[00:05:03]>> Yeah.

[00:05:09]>> You can hear how I'm fighting with the baseline as I try to play those chords.

[00:05:12]Okay. Yeah. I think bass is going or and just starting with F going up to the A. So, first inversion immediately. Very neat.

[00:05:25]>> Oh, no, I'm sorry. 53 right here.

[00:05:33]>> This is back to this part.

[00:05:38]>> Bass is doing some fifths there.

[00:05:46]And that's kind of a weird succession of chords. It's It's not the root or the key. It's not the root of the key. C B flat. B flat and C major don't go in the same key. So I think we're just hearing F. So it's going 5 3. Sorry, 5 43.

[00:06:03]So it kind of makes you think it's in C major.

[00:06:11]So they're kind of just taking F terms of the root key and then going in the middle of the chord bank in the scale and kind of putting that chorus part there. So neat way to just not rely on the the root note all the time.

[00:06:25]>> All right.

[00:06:33]>> Yeah. Just traversing all those triads.

[00:06:52]I like it. And it's sometimes it's using one note that appears in C major, let's say. So maybe it's taking like the G and then when it goes to G, it's staying on the G. So it's linking them together so interestingly, like so efficiently.

[00:07:08]Again, what I mean by that is if the bass player is writing on the G and we're in C, that's second inversion technically. So, it's kind of making this sound.

[00:07:17]That's technically another C major just with G in the bass because we have normal, we have first inversion, we have second inversion.

[00:07:25]Everything on top here I've been playing the exact same. That's the C major.

[00:07:29]That's like the guitar part, right? So, we have first, I'm sorry, no inversion, first inversion, second. So, the bass sometimes will go up to the G while the chord's on C, but then the next chord will be a G. So then it goes from the fifth of the previous chord to the root of the next chord. So it just rides on that G. I think that's what's happening here because it has this kind of you hear it again. I I really dig this baseline style.

[00:08:01]>> See?

[00:08:06]>> Yeah.

[00:08:08]fifth on C, then lands on the root, goes up to the third there. So now it's kind of inverting that G chord. And I'm being really hyperbolic, I guess, when I say it's inverting the chord every time. I'm just talking about where the baseline lands within the chord the guitar is playing. And it's not always the root note. Root notes sometimes are the best baselines ever. Sometimes they can be a little boring. This is kind of a case of really making it something new and completely different. Okay.

[00:08:36]Heat. Heat.

[00:08:53]Man, that's great. It's kind of doing that same thing there again, too. It's going It's not going down to the A and giving you that.

[00:09:02]That would be the root note. It's just staying on the third. So, and then it's the fifth of F down to the third of F. Man, this is one of the coolest baselines I've heard in a while in terms of like inverting everything, not really giving you that root note solidarity and it has its own melody and it's not too complicated. I really like this. It kind of reminds me of the crafting of some of those Mottown baselines where they were just so melodic. They bridged everything together so well.

[00:09:33]>> I thought it was repeating more than it is, but I think it's the same except this part.

[00:09:54]53 >> on the fifth. Now it's the one really cool.

[00:10:26]>> Can I hear that organ? I don't know if it's creeping in. Was it always there? I don't know. But it's helping to kind of solidify what's happening when the bass is there's a lot of misdirection in that baseline.

[00:10:38]Man, I just like that melody.

[00:10:49]I'm sure I'm missing a note or two or maybe the articulation, but I think that's the gist of it. That's the melody.

[00:11:04]Sorry. Somehow.

[00:11:18]Yeah. Conversions galore.

[00:11:33]Okay, the song's very AB in that regard.

[00:11:35]So, another cool contrast of where the bass is on the roots, very affirmatively here.

[00:11:43]So, it's the five chord and F, the four chord, the three chord.

[00:11:48]That's the scale we're going down. It doesn't really give you that resolve going down to F. You don't hear That would feel kind of hull, but it leaves you hanging on that three chord, which is I don't know. It's a little pensive feeling, I guess.

[00:12:06]Kind of neutral sounding. And it never goes down. Really gives you that root chord except when the verse starts, but the bass doesn't really let you have it either because it's on the third and the fifth.

[00:12:21]So, I don't know. No, they never really give you the actual key of the song literally in the way it's played.

[00:12:27]There's always like an exception happening.

[00:12:31]>> Yep.

[00:12:36]>> Sorry. Somehow >> right back to it.

[00:12:44]>> My tone. I actually think my tone I'm going to mess with it a bit. I'm obviously using kind of that something kind of more modern. Hi. I'm going to I'm going to scoop this. Put some bass. Take some treble out. Just get a smoother sound.

[00:13:03]Now I'm a little bit more in the ballpark.

[00:13:12]Heat. Heat. Heat.

[00:13:22]Baby, >> double chorus.

[00:13:44]>> I know this Hammond. Every time I pay my I pay attention to the that ham and organ thing. It's like I previously I think it was just like holding chords.

[00:13:52]Now it's got some movement in it. So maybe it's just adding a little bit of energy kind of like the baseline is just keeping it moving into the song.

[00:14:02]Hear all that back there.

[00:14:04]It could have been doing it the whole time. I don't know. Just hearing it.

[00:14:12]Okay. really tagging the chorus over and over and over again. And maybe that's the song's resolve. The only time in the song where the bass really sits on the root note, everyone's in agreement on what chord we're on, not all this stuff we're playing. So maybe that's the resolve. But again, there was no just big there's no big F chord. Maybe the end.

[00:14:36]Are they going to give it to me?

[00:14:44]probably not.

[00:14:51]Of course they're going to do that.

[00:14:57]Makes you think it's an A minor. They just didn't go back down to the That's what I wanted. Just give me the F.

[00:15:07]So, when I was reading a bit about how Huskeroo, I almost said Huskeroo. I thought it was Huskeroo. I had to really look up the pronunciation. Huskerdoo.

[00:15:15]I was reading a bit about this album. It was like second to last. You know, they disbanded in ' 87. This was 86. But I had read a little bit about this album and that they had grown away from the hardcore punk sound that maybe they did sound like that or a lot of people put that label on them. was much more in their alt rock phase, I suppose. So, you know, reading about their name and them wanting to distance themselves from the hardcore punk label was that was kind of a concerted effort. But I'm curious to know what that sounds like because this sounds nothing like it. Very melodic.

[00:15:52]Um, I could see the vocals maybe getting a bit more intense, but musically this was really cool. This was really about the baseline on this one. Very interesting baseline and it didn't really land on the root notes you wanted to feel. That's why the guitar part was almost just there for a backdrop to be against the bass. So cool baseline. I haven't heard one like that in a while.

[00:16:13]Who's would love to come back. Let me know what other cool baselines this band might have. Thanks to all of you who have requested them. It's probably been a year or two since I've really seen a request for the band. Every now and then, but I'm digging back in the archives on the old lists making these bands happen. But thank you guys for hanging out with me today. If you'd like to support the channel further, Patreon's the best place to do it. I do full album breakdowns every month. I have bass lessons, music theory lessons, courses, a great community. We do live streams now. Come hang out with us. Make sure you subscribe to the YouTube channel. I love you all. We'll see you in the next one.