Can you imagine a piece of music without its bass line? Or going out dancing with no bass to move to?

Whether it's an epic symphony or a club classic - we love listening to the bass.

But what actually is 'bass'? How is it that we can often feel it as much as hear it? And why is it that every genre of music seems to need it.

Tom Service goes on a whistlestop tour of bass through the musical ages: from Bach to Boulez, via reggae to rock n roll, Stevie Wonder to Dizzee Rascal. He discovers what links whales and horror movies in the world of bass. And he enlists the help of neuroscientist Dr Laurel Trainor to find out how we're hardwired into the bass as humans and whether it might even be true that the bigger the bass, the more we like each other.