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There are two conflicting stories surrounding the creation of 'Blackbird'. One story simply says that Paul woke up early one morning in Rishikesh to hear a blackbird singing, picked up his guitar to transcribe the bird song and came up with an album track. The other more involved account suggests that he was inspired by news reporting of racial tension in America and saw a blackbird with broken wings struggling to fly a a metaphor of oppressed racial minorities beginning to flex their muscles. The problem with the second story is that the death of Martin Luther King - which provoked riots in April 1968 - didn't take place until after Paul had returned from the States, with the song already under his belt. One night in the summer of 1968, Paul serenaded the fans gathered outside his home with an acoustic version of 'Blackbird'. Margo Bird, a former Apple Scruff (the term for the group of fans who used to congregate outside the Apple offices in Savile Row) remembers: "I think he had a young lady round, Francie Schuartz. We'd been hanging around outside and it was obvious she wasn't going to be leaving. He had a music room right at the top of the house and he opened the sash window, sat on the edge and played it to us. It was the early hours of the morning." Paul often cites 'Blackbird' as evidence that the best of his songs come spontaneously, when words and music tumble out as if they had come into being without conscious effort on his behalf. |
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writer: Lennon/McCartney |