Paul McCartney's Civil Rights Song: Blackbird
Paul McCartney’s song "Blackbird" on the Beatles' White Album is often compared to Lennon's "Julia" for its tender qualities, possibly making it one of the most delicate songs in the band's entire repertoire. Inspired by a Bach piece that McCartney and George Harrison had learned in their youth, the finger-picked acoustic guitar in "Blackbird" gives it a folk lullaby feel.
However, the song's complex time signatures and delicate melody made it challenging to record, with Abbey Road sessions requiring 32 takes, mostly being false starts, and only 11 complete recordings. The version included on the album is the final take, completed while Lennon was working on "Revolution 9" in the adjacent studio.
The footage above shows 1:33 of that session, filmed on 16mm by a film crew from Apple Records under the direction of Tony Bramwell. This segment is part of a 10-minute promotional video that also features scenes of McCartney recording “Helter Skelter” and various other locations such as the Apple Boutique, Apple Tailoring, McCartney’s garden, and more, as noted by the Beatles Bible. It captures a fleeting glimpse of peaceful moments amidst the demanding 5-month White Album sessions, which despite their well-known tension and conflicts, also had their share of such serene instances.
The recording of "Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da," which lasted for three days and led to engineer Geoff Emerick quitting, stands in stark contrast. It suggests that the Beatles excelled when working individually in 1968. The accompanying video also reveals a technical aspect of the recording process: the ticking sound in the studio track is not from a metronome but from Paul's feet tapping on the wooden studio floor to keep time for the intricate song, which alternates between 3/4, 4/4, and 2/4 time signatures. “Part of its structure is a particular harmonic thing between the melody and the bass line which intrigued me,” he remembered, and we see him striving to get it right.
In October 1968, the initial public rendition of “Blackbird” was unexpectedly witnessed by the girls who frequented The Beatles' residences, studios, and workplaces, as famously depicted in George Harrison’s track “Apple Scruffs.” One of the fans, Margo Stevens, remembered the moment when Paul McCartney and his new partner, Linda, were seen passing through the grand gates outside his residence in the picturesque area of St Johns Wood, merely a short stroll away from Abbey Road.
“The light went on in the Mad Room, at the top of the house, where he kept all his music stuff and his toys. Paul opened the window and called out to us,
‘Are you still down there?’ ‘Yes,’ we said. He must have been really happy that night. He sat on the windowsill with his acoustic guitar and sang ‘Blackbird’ to us, standing down there in the dark.”
The Civil Rights origins of the song
The song was created based on a guitar technique influenced by Bach, a style that both Paul and George had enjoyed demonstrating since they were teenagers. It was written while they were at Paul's farm in Scotland. “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. It’s not really about a blackbird whose wings are broken, you know. It’s a bit more symbolic!”
The assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr in Memphis in April 1968 marked a turning point in the civil rights movement.. “Blackbird,” like John Lennon’s “Revolution” and George’s “While My Guitar Gently Weeps,” was penned as a reaction to the apparent disorder of what would later be known as a year marked by protests, fatalities, and hopelessness. “Those were the days of the civil rights movement, which all of us cared passionately about,” Paul said, “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.”
The stripped-back production
A major contrast between Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band and “The White Album” lies in the more subdued approach taken with the orchestral arrangements on the latter. Paul’s “Blackbird” serves as a prime example of this difference. Just two days prior to the release of “The White Album,” Paul conversed with Radio Luxembourg’s Tony Macarthur at his residence on Cavendish Avenue. In response to Macarthur expressing anticipation for another leap from Sgt. Pepper, Paul remarked:
“Well it is another step, you know, but it’s not necessarily in the way people expected. On Sgt. Pepper we had more instrumentation than we’d ever had. More orchestral stuff than we’d ever used before, so it was more of a production. But we didn’t really want to go overboard like that this time, and we’ve tried to play more like a band this time, only using instruments when we had to, instead of just using them for the fun of it.”
When discussing "Blackbird," which was recorded on June 11, he went into detail: “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… 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!”
Following the era of the Beatles, McCartney incorporated “Blackbird” into his performances, including it in almost every concert since 1975. The enduring appeal of the song to him over the years was not solely due to its beauty, but also its connection to the Civil Rights movement, a cause that he expressed deep passion for, stating that “all of us cared passionately about.”. “Blackbird” is “symbolic, so you could apply it to your particular problem,” but the song’s intended message, he said, was “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.’”
Below you can watch McCartney talk about the story behind “Blackbird” in a 2005 production called Chaos & Creation at Abbey Road.
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