Black bird song11/24/2023 "This is one of my themes: ' take a sad song and make it better,' let this song help you. It's not really about a blackbird whose wings are broken, you know. In a 2002 radio interview with KCRW's Chris Douridas, Paul elaborates a little more about the lyrical meaning of the song: “I was in Scotland playing my guitar and I remembered this whole idea of ' you were only waiting for this moment to arise' was about, you know, the black people's struggle in the southern states, and I was using the symbolism of a blackbird. Those were the days of the civil-rights movement, which all of us cared passionately about, so this was really a song from me to a black woman, experiencing these problems in the States: 'Let me encourage you to keep trying, to keep your faith, there is hope.' As is often the case with my things, a veiling took place so, rather than say 'Black woman living in Little Rock' and be very specific, she became a bird, became symbolic, so you could apply it to your particular problem." During Paul's "Driving USA" tour, he would introduce the song by saying that the term " bird" was British slang for "girl," so in essence the song was about a "black girl.” So I took that and I made it.(plays 'Blackbird' introduction).and that became the beginning of 'Blackbird.' So, you know, you'd take these little discoveries and kind of just move them around a little bit to suit you because it was something you loved.”Īs for the lyrics, Paul relates: “I had in mind a black woman, rather than a bird. It was kind of the beginning of a Bach piece, but nobody knew any better, so it was like.(plays Bach introduction). But there was a thing that George Harrison and I used to do which was, we thought it was Bach's piece. Unfortunately, none of them bothered, you know. You know, 'Hey girls.', you know, you would do that. “You often did things just as party pieces, things to show off, literally, at a party. Bach's "Bourree in E minor." Paul elaborated about this a little more during a 2014 interview at Rollins College, Winter Park, Florida. The piece of music that Paul referred to above has been identified as J.S. They'd started out in Liverpool around the same time as The Beatles." I developed the melody on guitar based on the Bach piece and took it somewhere else, took it to another level, then I just fitted the words to it." In Paul's book "The Lyrics," he adds: "The fingerpicking style was something we admired in Chet Atkins, particularly in a piece called 'Trambone,' though it was also played by Colin Manley, from a group called The Remo Four. We also liked the stories of him being the church organist and wopping this stuff out weekly, which was rather similar to what we were doing. For some reason we thought his music was very similar to ours and we latched on to him amazingly quickly. Bach was always one of our favorite composers we felt we had a lot in common with him. Part of its structure is a particular harmonic thing between the melody and the bass line which intrigued me. Both the melody and the lyrics have specific inspiration behind them.Ĭoncerning the melody, Paul explains in his book “Many Years From Now”: "The original inspiration was from a well-known piece by Bach, which I never knew the title of, which George and I had learned to play at an early age he better than me actually. Shortly after returning from India where he was learning the art of Trancendental Meditation with the other Beatles, Paul wrote "Blackbird" while at High Park Farm in Kintyre, Scotland in April of 1968. For such a delicate acoustic piece hidden away as the eleventh track on a double-album, a song that was never a charted hit, it has been said to have become one of the top ten most covered songs of all time. Then, from 2002 onward, “Blackbird” has become a fixture in his set lists, the song getting a rousing reception after every performance on every tour he's done since. Apart from “ Long Tall Sally,” it was one of the first Beatles songs that McCartney decided to perform live during his 1975/1976 “Wings Over The World” tour. What first appeared as a simple but impressive solo acoustic Paul track on the “ White Album” has ended up becoming one of the most popular signature pieces of his entire career. If you are a Beatles fan and a guitarist, as many are, and happen to have an acoustic guitar with you when you're with a group of friends, what do you think the likelihood is that someone will ask you to play "Blackbird"? I would think the likelihood is pretty darn high!
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