a first listen of blackbird by the beatles okay so this song comes off their ninth studio album
it's a double album called the white album now from what i've read from fans and critics alike
this album is thought to be one of their best pieces of work it is a combination
of their more melodic popular phase of their early years and their more experimental phase
such as sergeant peppers so this track is actually credited to london and mccarney but it's solely
written by mccartney and is a solo performance in terms of what the track uh the possible sort
of inspirations of this track mccartney has said the lyrics were inspired by hearing the calls of
a blackbird in rishikesh india when they were doing a transcendental meditation retreat um
which seems to be a um a theme that comes up quite a lot they are inspired by eastern philosophy a
lot um also is said to be um inspired by racial tensions in the states which of course was um
a sort of a fever pitch at the time um super cool context of the track i'm very
excited to hear what this song sounds like so let's get into the music okay here we go
this is actually a live performance of the song just because beatles tracks usually have some
copyright issues on youtube so this is rock show live wings of america tour in 1976. here we go
i'd like to change over to my other piano
as winner for that well once said he's holding a guitar when he said that
take these broken wings and learn to fly
all your life
wow
you're only waiting for
wow it's amazing how impactful just a man and his guitar can be
um the arrangement is super simple yet the results are so much greater than the sum of his parts
and mccartney's voice is amazing the way he delivers these lyrics um it's really really
hopeful really hopeful uh beautiful song so far let me take this back a little waiting bit
this moment to be free the light of a dark black light wow
these broken wings and learn to fly
on your line your only way for this moment to
you know what's quite amazing to see um it's not on the screen it's the video of the live
performance seeing the crowd they're kind of quiet i mean you can hear a general buzz but
when they show images of the crowd they're kind of just enthralled by mccartney no one's even
really singing the song along with him which is quite uh different from hip-hop shows where
crowd involvement is sort of key to the whole thing it's kind of the point of it
this is much more of like a musician's performance you're there to hear him sing
so it's quite cool to see the difference between the two different genres
and how they perform their music let's take this back a little bit
into the light of the dark night
take these sunken eyes and learn to see
all your life
what a beautiful song man what a beautiful song i really love those extra little um hums and stuff
he adds to it as well as a fan of hip-hop like kid cudi is the king of humming but uh paul mccartney
might just have that crown um okay to speak about the song a little bit i've always thought of uh
the lennon and mccartney duo to be kind of representing light and dark um it's almost like uh
it's almost like that taoist sign of yin and yang where like the light has a little bit of dark and
the dark has a little bit of light in it mccartney always representing like the light side of things
you know this song is so hopeful um i don't know if len can write a song like this uh maybe i'd
i'll be uh proven wrong in the lyrics someone will um let me know about that but this song is
uh so hopeful and it tells a tale of i guess a bird who's broken its wings the
expert songwriting that mccartney shows here is the idea that you can sort of apply whatever
interpretations or personal life experiences onto this song
it's such a simply written track yet so profound and that it kind of reminds me of the way
bob marley writes records i'm a big fan of bob marley but if you think of his song
like three little birds came to his window and told him that everything's gonna be okay
um the track is not a complex tale yet um it's very profound and i see a similar thing here
um really cool song and to speak a little bit on his inspirations of the track too
um being of the racial tensions in the u.s you can see how the song could relate to that
specifically the idea of becoming free and it having uh you know this black bird having broken
wings at the moment but it can eventually learn to fly beautifully done man beautifully written song
generally speaking i'm not a fan of like acoustic records um i tend to gravitate to the more heavier
stuff the more darker stuff that's why i think i'd be more of a fan of lennon's work um however
a track like this can you know is is winning me over um great song man thumbs up from me