Main Writer: McCartney
Recorded: June 11, 1968
Released: November 25, 1968
Not released as a single

"Blackbird" was really about the struggle over civil rights: "I had in mind a black woman, rather than a bird," McCartney said. "Those were the days of the civil rights movement, which all of us cared passionately about, 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.'"

In one sense, the song was an oblique response to Lennon's "Revolution," the other big political song on the White Album. "As is often the case with my things, a veiling took place," said McCartney, "so, rather than say, 'Black woman living in Little Rock,' and be very specific, she became a bird, became symbolic."

McCartney recorded "Blackbird" on his own. Harrison and Starr were in California (where Harrison was being filmed for Ravi Shankar's movie Raga), and Lennon was in a different studio working on "Revolution 9." McCartney has said that the fingerpicked guitar lines of "Blackbird," written at his Scotland farm soon after he returned from India, were loosely based on Bach's "Bourrée in E minor," which he and Harrison used to practice in their early years. The blackbird heard on the track was from a sound-effects collection. "He did a very good job, I thought," McCartney joked. "He sings very well on that."

After he'd run through the song a number of times, McCartney told engineer Geoff Emerick that he wanted the song to sound as if he were singing it outdoors. "Fine," Emerick said, "then let's do it outdoors" — and they relocated to tape "Blackbird" outside Abbey Road Studios' echo chamber.

McCartney gave the first semipublic performance of "Blackbird" to a group of fans outside his Cavendish Avenue home. "Paul opened the window and called out to us, 'Are you still down there?'" one of them recalled. "Then he sat on the windowsill with his acoustic guitar and sang 'Blackbird' to us, standing down there in the dark."

Appears On: The Beatles

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