Tag: Paul McCartney

Song Lyric Sunday – Blackbird

This week, host of Song Lyric Sunday, Jim Adams, has given us prompts of Bird, Cat, Dog, Fish and Pet. You could say we have been spoilt for choice because I can think of many songs for each prompt. I am curious to see what everyone chooses. My pick is a favorite Beatles song, Blackbird. The backstory is interesting and I hope you enjoy this lovely song and Paul McCartney’s melodic voice and beautiful lyrics.

Paul McCartney wrote this about the civil rights struggle for African Americans after reading about race riots in the US. He penned it in his kitchen in Scotland not long after an incident in Little Rock when the federal courts forced the racial desegregation of the Arkansas capital’s school system.

“I was sitting around with my acoustic guitar and I’d heard about the civil rights troubles that were happening in the ’60s in Alabama, Mississippi, Little Rock in particular,” he told GQ. “I just thought it would be really good if I could write something that if it ever reached any of the people going through those problems, it might give them a little bit of hope. So, I wrote ‘Blackbird.'”

Only three sounds were recorded: Paul’s voice, his Martin D-28 acoustic guitar, and a tapping that keeps time on the left channel.

This tapping sound is a bit of a mystery, although in the Beatles Anthology video McCartney appears to be making the sound with his foot. Some sources have claimed it is a metronome.

The birds were dubbed in later using sound effects from the collection at Abbey Road, where the song was recorded.

McCartney did not have ornithological intentions when he wrote this song. In England, “bird” is a term meaning “girl,” so the song is a message to a black girl, telling her it’s her time to fly:

All your life
You were only waiting for this moment to arise

The guitar accompaniment for this song was inspired by Bach’s Bourrée in E minor for lute. This is often played on classical guitar, an instrument Paul McCartney and George Harrison had tried to learn when they were kids. McCartney told Mojo magazine October 2008: “We had the first four bars (of the Bourrée in E minor) and that was as far as my imagination went. I think George had it down for a few more bars and then he crapped out. So I made up the next few bars, and (sings his four-note variation Bach’s theme) it became the basis of ‘Blackbird.'”

This is one of the songs novice guitar players often try to learn, as it’s one of the most famous finger-style tunes. The singer Donovan claims some credit for teaching The Beatles a technique similar to the one McCartney used here when they were on a retreat to India in early 1968.

The word “bird” had been floating around Paul McCartney’s musical lexicon since 1958 when the Everly Brothers had a hit with “Bird Dog,” a song about a guy trying to steal another dude’s girl. McCartney was a huge fan of the Everly Brothers. Just for fun, here is a video of Bird Dog by the Everly Brothers.

There have been hundreds of covers of this song. Perhaps the most enduring is Brad Mehldau’s instrumental jazz version, released in 1997. The only charting version of the song was by the Cast of Glee, which took it to #37 in 2011. Other notable covers include renditions by José Feliciano, Billy Preston, Sarah Vaughan, Jaco Pastorius, Crosby, Stills & Nash, Bobby McFerrin and Dwight Twilley. The Doves did a cover in 2002 for the soundtrack to the TV series Roswell.

The singer-guitarist Kenny Rankin recorded it for his 1974 album Silver Morning. McCartney was a big fan of Rankin’s rendition: when the Songwriters Hall of Fame inducted Lennon and McCartney in 1987, McCartney skipped the ceremony but had Rankin accept the award on his behalf and perform “Blackbird.”

The “broken wings” concept had been fluttering about for a while, notably in Kahlil Gibran’s 1912 story The Broken Wings. (The Beatles song “Julia” uses lines from one of Gibran’s poems, but McCartney has never cited him as an influence on “Blackbird.”) In 1985, the American group Mr. Mister released their #1 hit “Broken Wings,” which was directly inspired by The Broken Wings and like “Blackbird,” used the line, “Take these broken wings and learn to fly.”

Foo Fighters frontman Dave Grohl told Q magazine that he feels this is the greatest Paul McCartney song. He commented: “It’s such a beautiful piece of music, perfect in composition and performance, and in its lyrics and in the range of his voice. Just learning that song made me a better guitar player and gave me a better appreciation of songwriting. To me it’s just musical bliss.”

At the Academy Awards ceremony in 2016, Dave Grohl performed this song to accompany the “in memoriam” segment, recognizing those in the movie industry who died the previous year.

Blackbird Singing is the title of a book of poems McCartney wrote

This is one of about 12 Beatles songs that McCartney often played in his live shows throughout his career. It lends itself to live performance because it is rather compact (it runs just 2:18) and can be played with just a guitar.

Courtesy of Songfacts

Lyrics

Blackbird singing in the dead of night
Take these broken wings and learn to fly
All your life
You were only waiting for this moment to arise

Blackbird singing in the dead of night
Take these sunken eyes and learn to see
All your life
You were only waiting for this moment to be free

Blackbird fly, blackbird fly
Into the light of a dark black night

Blackbird fly, blackbird fly
Into the light of a dark black night

Blackbird singing in the dead of night
Take these broken wings and learn to fly
All your life
You were only waiting for this moment to arise
You were only waiting for this moment to arise
You were only waiting for this moment to arise

Writer/s: John Lennon, Paul McCartney 
Publisher: Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC, Tratore
Lyrics licensed and provided by LyricFind

Song Lyric Sunday- Listen To What The Man Said

This week the prompts for Song Lyric Sunday from Jim Adams are Listen, Hear, Talk and Speak. I went with a sweet Wings song that I particularly like called Listen To What The Man Said. I love the video of Paul and Linda McCartney along with their children. I hope you enjoy it too.

The song was a hit single from Wings’ 1975 album Venus and Mars. The song featured new member Joe English on drums, with guest musicians Dave Mason on guitar and Tom Scott on soprano saxophone. It was a number 1 single on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in the US and reached number 1 in Canada on the RPM National Top Singles Chart. It also reached number 6 in the UK, and reached the top ten in Norway and New Zealand and the top twenty in the Netherlands. The single was certified Gold by the Recording Industry Association of America for sales of over one million copies.

It was recorded in early 1975 by Wings during their New Orleans sessions for Venus and Mars. It was a song for which Paul McCartney had high hopes, but early recordings did not live up to the song’s potential. McCartney said in 1975 of his initial opinion of the song, “It was one of the songs we’d gone in with high hopes for. Whenever I would play it on the piano, people would say ‘Oh, I like that one.’ But when we did the backing track, we thought we didn’t really get it together at all.” After Mason added guitar overdubs, the band was still dissatisfied. However, once Scott recorded the sax solo, judgements were changed. Although several takes of the solo were recorded, the very first take was the one that was used. McCartney said of Tom Scott’s impact on the track, “Someone said [famous jazz musician] ‘Tom Scott lives near here.’ We said, yeah, give him a ring, see if he turns up, and he turned up within half an hour! There he was, with his sax, and he sat down in the studio playing through. The engineer was recording it. We kept all the notes he was playing casually. He came in and I said ‘I think that’s it.’ He said ‘Did you record that?’ I said yes, and we listened to it back. No one could believe it, so he went out and tried a few more, but they weren’t as good. He’d had all the feel on this early take, the first take.” The effect of a kiss smack heard on the track was recorded by engineer Alan O’Duffy, who taped Linda doing it. 

Lyrics
 
Any time, any day
You can hear the people say
That love is blind
Well, I don't know but I say love is kind
 
Do do do, do do do do do
Do do do, do do do do do
 
Soldier boy kisses girl
Leaves behind a tragic world
But he won't mind, he's in love
And he says love is fine
 
Do do do, do do do do do
Do do do, do do do do do
 
Oh yes, indeed we know
That people will find a way to go
No matter what the man said
And love is fine for all we know
For all we know, our love will grow
That's what the man said
So won't you listen to what the man said
He said
 
Ah, take it away
 
Oh yes, indeed we know
That people will find a way to go
No matter what the man said
And love is fine for all we know
For all we know, our love will grow
That's what the man said
So won't you listen to what the man said
He said
 
Oh yes, indeed we know
That people will find a way to go
No matter what the man said
And love is fine for all we know
For all we know, our love will grow
That's what the man said
So won't you listen to what the man said
He said
 
The wonder of it all baby
The wonder of it all baby
The wonder of it all baby, yeah yeah yeah
 
Source: LyricFind
Songwriters: Linda Mccartney / Paul Mccartney
Listen to What the Man Said lyrics © Kobalt Music Publishing Ltd.

Story courtesy of Wiki
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