Three ways of looking at a blackbird

December 13, 2011 • 4:20 am

One of the most beautiful of the Beatles’ songs, not about birds but about civil rights.

1. Crosby, Stills and Nash (they’re older and plumper now, and Stills’s voice isn’t what it was, but they can still harmonize)

2. Sarah McLachlan

3. and the composer, Paul McCartney

From Wikipedia:

McCartney explained on PBS’s Great Performances (Paul McCartney: Chaos and Creation at Abbey Road), aired in 2006, that the guitar accompaniment for “Blackbird” was inspired by J.S. Bach’s Bourrée in E minor, a well known lute piece, often played on the classical guitar. As children, he and George Harrison tried to learn Bourrée as a “show off” piece. The Bourrée is distinguished by melody and bass notes played simultaneously on the upper and lower strings. McCartney adapted a segment of the Bourrée (reharmonized into the original’s relative major key of G) as the opening of “Blackbird,” and carried the musical idea throughout the song.

16 thoughts on “Three ways of looking at a blackbird”

  4. Well, given the subject matter of the Wiki excerpt, I feel obliged to comment.

    Don’t have much to say, though, except to note that I didn’t know Blackbird was inspired by Bach’s music.

    And I’ll also note that the Wiki excerpt is one of those instances that demonstrates Wikipedia’s “iffy-ness.” I really don’t know what is meant by this: “The Bourrée is distinguished by melody and bass notes played simultaneously on the upper and lower strings.” All of Bach’s music that’s playable on the guitar (we don’t actually know of any pieces by Bach that were unambiguously intended only for lute) requires playing more than one note at a time. Quite a lot of classical guitar music is polyphonic like this.

  5. It’s just an example of counterpoint-two independent melody lines which distinguish it from ordinary polyphonic music. I think that’s what the wiki was trying to communicate.

    1. Two voices is still polyphonic.

      My point was that having two voices does not distinguish this boureé. Almost all of Bach’s other music playable on guitar is written in multiple voices. The only exception coming to mind right now is the Praeludio from the E-major partita. If you don’t count multilinearity, it’s written in only one voice.

  6. Jethro Tull recorded a syncopated version of the Bach Bourrée on their Stand Up album in 1969.

  7. My favorite guitarist joke:

    Q: How many guitarists does it take to change a lightbulb?

    A: 200: one to change it and 199 to sit in the audience and say, “I could do that!”

    Nevertheless, I can play Blackbird properly. (Can’t sing it though!)

  10. While we’re on the topic of the Jethro Tull Bach Bouree, this spring an astronaut on the ISS and Ian Anderson, the flutist from Jethro Tull, did it as an Earth-Space duet:

  11. Ah yes, the Beatles, my fav group of all time, and Paul, the group’s inspirational pillar IMO. First a little history of my times in So. Cal, after migrating away from the Michigan winters.

    I remember the first time I heard ‘Please Please Me’ on the Beatles’ first album, and it knocked my socks off. I’m taking up drums, I thought, but instead, started playing around with my roommate’s guitar. With a little instruction from him and much practice, I started picking it up.

    Later in a put-together garage band, we worked well into the nights copying all of the Beatles songs as they were released. I even think the loco weed helped. I was McCartney’s age, the other guys in their mid teens.

    I later got a hold of an imported classical guitar, filed the frets for a nice low action allowing hammering, and continued on largely in the classical mode, with Charlie Byrd as my idol.

    Then came the White Album, and of course Blackbird. Took me awhile to figure out the fingering (no Youtube then). Interesting that some of the most pop tunes to come along had the simplest lyrics and note structure.

    Of note, ‘I’ll Be Home for Christmas’ had only 20 words in verse one, and 20 in the chorus, a simple AB structure song, yet one of the most played on radio this time of year, and by over 100 artists.

    Similarly, Blackbird has only 27 words in each of the 2 verses, with 12 in the chorus, and among stage and bar room performances, will always be one of the best received of all time, IMO.

    Simplicity recapitulates ecstasy.

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