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. "Blackbird" includes the sound of a male common blackbird singing Manson interpreted the lyrics 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. Īlong 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. 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. Writing in the 1990s, Ian MacDonald noted the theory that "Blackbird" was intended as "a metaphor for the black civil rights struggle", but pointed to the composition's romantic qualities, arguing that the early-morning bird song "translates … into a succinct metaphor for awakening on a deeper level". Īlthough McCartney has been consistent in the meaning, there are still varied interpretations – as a nature song, a message in support of the Black Power movement, or a love song. 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. His stepmother, Angie McCartney, has claimed that McCartney wrote it for her elderly mother, Edith Stopforth, who was staying at Jim McCartney's house while recovering from a long illness. 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. It's not really about a blackbird whose wings are broken, you know, it's a bit more symbolic. I had been doing some 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. In May 2002, following a show in Dallas, Texas, McCartney discussed the song with KCRW DJ Chris Douridas, saying: He has said that he was inspired by hearing the call of a blackbird one morning when the Beatles were studying Transcendental Meditation in Rishikesh, India and also writing it in Scotland as a response to racial tensions escalating in the United States during the spring of 1968. Since composing "Blackbird" in 1968, McCartney has given various statements regarding both his inspiration for the song and its meaning. The first night his future wife Linda Eastman stayed at his home, McCartney played "Blackbird" for the fans camped outside his house. 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 Bourrée is distinguished by melody and bass notes played simultaneously on the upper and lower strings. As teenagers, he and George Harrison tried to learn Bourrée as a "show off" piece. 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. Problems playing this file? See media help.
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