Blackbird

From Wikipedia:

“Blackbird” is a song by the English rock band the Beatles from their 1968 double album The Beatles (also known as “the White Album”). It was written by Paul McCartney and credited to Lennon–McCartney, and performed as a solo piece by McCartney. When discussing the song, McCartney has said that the lyrics were inspired by hearing the call of a blackbird in Rishikesh, India, and alternatively by the unfortunate state of race relations in the United States in the 1960s.

Origins

McCartney explained on Chaos and Creation at Abbey Road, aired in 2005, that the guitar accompaniment for “Blackbird” was inspired by Johann Sebastian Bach’s Bourrée in E minor, a well-known lute piece, often played on the classical guitar. As teenagers, he and George Harrison tried to learn Bourrée as a “show off” piece. The Bourrée is distinguished by melody and bass notes played simultaneously on the upper and lower strings. McCartney adapted a segment of the Bourrée (reharmonised into the original’s relative major key of G) as the opening of “Blackbird”, and carried the musical idea throughout the song.

The first night his future wife Linda Eastman stayed at his home, McCartney played “Blackbird” for the fans camped outside his house. The fingerpicking technique that McCartney uses in the song was taught to him by folk singer Donovan.

Meaning and interpretation

Since composing “Blackbird” in 1968, McCartney has given various statements regarding both his inspiration for the song and its meaning. In one of these scenarios, he has said he was inspired by hearing the call of a blackbird one morning when the Beatles were studying Transcendental Meditation in Rishikesh, India. In another, he recalls writing it in Scotland as a response to racial tensions escalating in the United States during the spring of 1968.

In May 2002, following a show in Dallas, Texas, McCartney discussed the song with KCRW DJ Chris Douridas, saying:

“I had been doing some [poetry readings] in the last year or so because I’ve got a poetry book out called Blackbird Singing, and when I would read “Blackbird”, I would always try and think of some explanation to tell the people … So, I was doing explanations, and I actually just remembered why I’d written “Blackbird”, you know, that I’d been, I was in Scotland playing on 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. It’s not really about a blackbird whose wings are broken, you know, it’s a bit more symbolic.”

In 2018, McCartney further elaborated on the song’s meaning, explaining that “blackbird” should be interpreted as “black girl”, in the context of the civil rights troubles in southern 1960s US.

A third scenario came from the recollection of his stepmother, Angie McCartney. She said that McCartney wrote it for her elderly mother, Edith Stopforth, who was staying at Jim McCartney’s house while recovering from a long illness. Angie recalled that McCartney visited the house and sat at Edith’s bedside, where Edith told him that she would listen to a bird singing at night.

The lyrics have invited similarly varied interpretations – as a nature song, a message in support of the Black Power movement, or a love song. Writing in the 1990s, Ian MacDonald dismissed the idea that “Blackbird” was intended as “a metaphor for the black civil rights struggle”. Noting instead the composition’s romantic qualities, MacDonald said that the early-morning bird song “translates … into a succinct metaphor for awakening on a deeper level”. However, during an informal rehearsal at EMI Studios on 22 November 1968, before he and Donovan took part in a Mary Hopkin recording session, McCartney played “Blackbird”, telling Donovan that he wrote it after having “read something in the paper about the riots” and that he meant the black “bird” to symbolise a black woman.

Along with McCartney’s “Helter Skelter“, “Blackbird” was one of several White Album songs that Charles Manson interpreted as the Beatles’ prophecy of an apocalyptic race war that would lead to him and his “Family” of followers ruling the US on countercultural principles. Manson interpreted the lyrics’ repetition of the word “rise” as a call to black Americans to wage war on their white counterparts, and instructed his followers to commit a series of murders in Los Angeles in August 1969 to trigger such a conflict.

Composition and recording

The song was recorded on 11 June 1968 at EMI’s Abbey Road Studios in London, with George Martin as the producer and Geoff Emerick as the audio engineer. It is a solo performance with McCartney playing a Martin D 28 acoustic guitar. The track includes recordings of a male common blackbird singing in the background.

Only three sounds were recorded: McCartney’s voice, his Martin D-28 acoustic guitar, and a tapping that keeps time on the left channel. This tapping “has been incorrectly identified as a metronome in the past”, according to engineer Geoff Emerick, who says it is actually the sound of Paul tapping his foot. McCartney also said the same in The Beatles’ Anthology documentary. Emerick recalls as being mic’d up separately. Footage included in the bonus content on disc two of the 2009 remaster of the album shows McCartney tapping both his feet alternately while performing the song.

The mono version contains the bird sounds a few seconds earlier than the stereo recording, and was originally issued on a mono incarnation of The Beatles (it has since been issued worldwide as part of The Beatles in Mono CD box set). The song appears on Love with “Yesterday“, billed as “Blackbird/Yesterday”. “Blackbird” provides an introduction to “Yesterday”.

Live performances

In 1973, McCartney included the song, along with the Beatles track “Michelle“, as part of his acoustic medley in the television special James Paul McCartney. Starting with his 1975–76 world tour with the band Wings, McCartney has performed “Blackbird” on every one of his concert tours. A solo performance of the song, followed by “Yesterday”, appears on Wings’ 1976 live album Wings Over America.

McCartney also included “Blackbird” in his set at the Party at the Palace concert in June 2002. In 2009, McCartney performed the song at the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival, commenting prior to singing it on how it had been written in response to the Civil Rights Movement, and added, “It’s so great to realise so many civil rights issues have been overcome.”

A live version appears in the multi-CD collection Good Evening New York City, which was released in 2009 and recorded inside the American stadium Citi Field.

Legacy

Coinciding with the 50th anniversary of its release, Jacob Stolworthy of The Independent listed “Blackbird” at number five in his ranking of the White Album’s 30 tracks. He said that its “beautiful calmness” was at odds with the growing racial tensions that allegedly inspired the song, and concluded: “For many, it’s the apotheosis of McCartney’s career and remains a standout in his solo live shows.” […]

The first time I ever heard ‘Blackbird’ was when Paul and I were walking up Abbey Road at about three in the morning, and he had his acoustic guitar on, swung over his shoulder on a piece of string. He had his long, brown, tweed overcoat on, which he had got from Oxfam. There were two fans following us as we got to the corner of Cavendish Avenue, where we stood under the gas lamp that was there. Suddenly, he said, ‘Hey, have a listen to this.’ He got his acoustic and he sang ‘Blackbird’ to me, and it was incredible! It was marvellous! Then, about six weeks later, he brought me an acetate and he said, ‘There you go, that’s that song I sang to you,’ and it was awful! It was typical McCartney, beautiful and simple, in the way that he had done it, but, it was not the song he had sung to me. So, I told him this and he said, ‘Oh, dear,’ and he went away and he came back and said, ‘I’ve redone it,’ and he had put bird noises on it. Paul hates empty spaces on his songs. I said, ‘Paul, you’ve got to be kidding!’ It’s still not right to this day.

Alistair Taylor – From “The Beatles: Off the Record” by Keith Badman

When first interviewed about “Blackbird“, in November 1968, Paul McCartney didn’t make reference to the civil rights movement in the US being the inspiration for it:

Well, it’s simple in concept because you couldn’t think of anything else to put on it. And that’s what I was saying about the ‘Sgt Pepper’ thing– Maybe on Pepper we would have sort of worked on it until we could find some way to put violins or trumpets in there. But I don’t think it needs it, this one. You know, it’s just… There’s nothing to the song. It is just one of those ‘pick it and sing it’ and that’s it. The only point where we were thinking of putting anything on it is where it comes back in the end…. sort of stops and comes back in… but instead of putting any backing on it, we put a blackbird on it. So there’s a blackbird singing at the very end. And somebody said it was a thrush, but I think it’s a blackbird!

Paul McCartney – from interview with Radio Luxembourg, 1968

However, at the same period (November 1968), Paul McCartney was in the studio with Donovan, and mentioned “Blackbird”:

Paul: I sang it to Diana Ross the other night. She took offense.

Everyone laughs.

Paul: Not really. But I did mean it like that originally.

Donovan: Really?

Paul: Yeah, I remember… I’d just read something in the paper about riots and then (singing briskly) Blackbird singing in the dead of night, take these broken wings and learn to fly, all your life, you were only waiting…

My Mum Edie was staying with us at Rembrandt in early 1968, recovering from an illness. Paul came home late one night and sat on the end of her bed and asked her, “Can you sleep OK, Edie?” And she said, “Well, on and off, but when I’m awake I always love listening to the blackbird that sings just outside of my bedroom window.”

So Paul went downstairs and got brother Mike’s big old tape recorder, I think it was a Grundig, and he brought it up and sat with Mum quietly until the bird started his nightly concert.

Paul captured the sound, took the tape away and edited it. A little later he went into the studio and recorded “Blackbird”. Before he started to sing, he said “This next one’s called ‘Blackbird,’ dedicated to Edie.” I still have a copy of the original tape where Paul starts out by saying, “This one’s dedicated to Edie”, and whenever I hear the song, I feel very proud that it was dedicated to my Mum. I know there have been other stories over the years, where people have tried to say that the “black” in the title was about an African American, and the “bird” was referring to a woman – Liverpool slang – and that it was related to the Civil Rights movement, but it was in our little back bedroom that he originally recorded the sweet singing blackbird (in the dead of night). It is one of the special flowers in my garden of memories.

Angie McCartney – Step-mother of Paul McCartney – From “Angie McCartney: My Long and Winding Road“, 2013

In 2016, Paul McCartney met two of the women who were members of the Little Rock Nine group and had inspired “Blackbird“. From paulmccartney.com, December 2016:

At his Little Rock gig in April, Paul met Mrs. Thelma Mothershed Wair and Ms. Elizabeth Eckford of the ‘Little Rock Nine’

Paul: Yeah, that was important, meeting two of the ‘Little Rock Nine’. At the concerts, I had always remembered this story about ‘Blackbird’ and the writing of it, which came from me doing poetry readings. I’d been encouraged by my friend who helped me on that poetry book I did [‘Blackbird Singing’] to tell a story, if I could remember anything about the song and then read the poem. So I did that and I thought, “That’s probably a nice idea for concerts”.

I remembered this story of the Civil Rights thing. How ‘Blackbird’ was really meant to try and communicate with people going through those struggles, and to see if it could help them. “You were only waiting for this moment to arise”. It had a, “We will overcome,” kind of aspect. So, it was like coming full circle going to Little Rock, where we’d only ever heard of as being the sort of place where the first kids went into the school that had previously been segregated. And to meet two of the kids who are now grown ups, and to see how well they’d done, and that it had all worked, was very moving. I was glad to be some tiny part of that. That was a nice evening. 

From The Usenet Guide to Beatles Recording Variations:

[a] stereo 13 Oct 1968.
UK: Apple PCS 7067 white album 1968.
US: Apple SWBO 101 white album 1968.
CD: EMI CDP 7 46443 2 white album 1987.

[b] mono 13 Oct 1968.
UK: Apple PMC 7067 white album 1968.

The overdubs of bird sounds were done differently, during mixing.

Lyrics

Variations

• A Stereo version • From "The Beatles (Stereo)"
• A2009 2009 stereo remaster • From "The Beatles • The Original Studio Recordings (2009)"
• B Mono version • From "The Beatles (Mono)"
• B2009 2009 mono remaster • From "The Beatles in Mono (2009)"
• B2014 2014 remaster • From "The Beatles In Mono (Vinyl boxset - 2014)"
• C Take 23 (mislabelled as Take 4) • From "Anthology 3"
• C2016 Take 23 (mislabelled as Take 4). 2016 remaster • From "Anthology 3 (2016 remaster)"
• D 2006 "The Beatles Love" mix • From "Love"
• E 2018 stereo mix • From "The Beatles (50th anniversary boxset)"
• F Esher Demo • From "The Beatles (50th anniversary boxset)"
• G Take 28 • From "The Beatles (50th anniversary boxset)"
• H From "Animal Requiem" by Rachel Fuller
• I
• L1 Live version • Boston • Boston Garden • USA • May 22, 1976 • From "Wings Over America"
• L1.2013 2013 remaster. Live version • Boston • Boston Garden • USA • May 22, 1976 • From "Wings Over America - Archive Collection"
• L2 Live version • "MTV Unplugged" • Jan 25, 1991 • From "Unplugged (The Official Bootleg)"
• L3 Live version • Boston • Fleet Center • USA • Apr 19, 2002 • From "Back In The U.S."
• L4 Live version • New York • Citi Field • USA • Jul 17, 2009 • From "Good Evening New York City"
• L5 Live version • San Francisco • Cow Palace • USA • Jun 14, 1976 • From "Wings Over America - Archive Collection"
• L6 Live version • Los Angeles • Amoeba Music • USA • Jun 27, 2007
• L6.2019 2019 mix. Live version • Los Angeles • Amoeba Music • USA • Jun 27, 2007 • From "Amoeba Gig"

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“Blackbird” has been played in 543 concerts and 9 soundchecks.

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