FEATURE:
Groovelines
include cover versions in Groovelines. Considering how celebrated Beyoncé’s cover is of The Beatles’ Blackbird, I wanted to feature it here. It is from her new album, COWBOY CARTER. The original, written by Paul McCartney, featured on The Beatles’ eponymous album of 1968. Whilst it was interpreted as a song about civil rights, McCartney never really said it was until much later. Not until the 1990s. I think many Beatles fans, prior to the 1990s, probably felt that Blackbird was about a literal blackbird. Beyoncé’s version is quite radical in terms of the sound and vocal. Bringing different things out of the lyrics. Giving new depth and meaning to a classic song. COWBOY CARTER is one of the most celebrated albums of the year. Among Beyoncé’s very best. Many have singled out BLACKBIRD as a highlight. It also features the brilliant Tanner Adell, Brittney Spencer, Tiera Kennedy, and Reyna Roberts. I want to go deeper with this song. There are a few features that are worth spotlighting. Rolling Stone recently celebrated the revisionary brilliance and power of Beyoncé’s reading of Blackbird:
“It’s a stroke of Beyoncé’s revisionary genius that brings the story of “Blackbird” full circle. She claims the song as if Paul McCartney wrote it for her. Because, in so many ways, he did.
Paul tells the story of writing it in his 2021 book The Lyrics. “At the time in 1968 when I was writing ‘Blackbird,’” he recalls, “I was very conscious of the terrible racial tensions in the U.S. The year before, 1967, had been a particularly bad year, but 1968 was even worse. The song was written only a few weeks after the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. That imagery of the broken wings and the sunken eyes and the general longing for freedom is very much of its moment.”
Paul wrote this song as a dialogue with Black America; Bey’s “Blackbird” is part of that call-and-response, proof that the song always meant exactly what McCartney hoped it would mean. It’s one of the most profound and powerful Beatles covers ever, right up there with Aretha Franklin’s “The Long and Winding Road.”
“I had in mind a Black woman, rather than a bird,” Paul says of the song in the 1997 book Many Years From Now, by Barry Miles. “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.’”
Paul was especially moved by the Little Rock Nine — a group of teenagers, the same age as so many Beatlemaniac fans, who caused a nationwide racist outrage in 1957 when they tried to enroll in an all-white high school in Little Rock, Arkansas. Gov. Orval Faubus called out the National Guard to block the kids from setting foot in the school. Writing “Blackbird” in the summer of 1968, with high-profile anti-Black violence in both the U.S. and the U.K., he turned that into the song. “As is often the case with my things, a veiling took place so rather than say ‘Black woman living in Little Rock’ and be very specific, she became a bird, became symbolic, so you could apply it to your particular problem.”
“Blackbird” is a song with a long history in Black music, from reggae (the Paragons’ gorgeous version from 1973) to jazz legends including Ramsey Lewis, Sarah Vaughn, and Cassandra Wilson.No song has a deeper dialogue between the Beatles and the Black America that gave them their voices. Anderson .Paak put his spin on “Blackbird” in 2013, years before he ended up contributing to Paul’s album McCartney 3 Imagined, with his funk remix of “When Winter Comes.”The Beatles’ sidekick Billy Preston, who plays with them all over the Get Back movie, gospelized it in 1972, as the flip side of his Number One hit “Will It Go Round in Circles.” His version is on the superb Ace Records anthology Come Together: Black America Sings the Beatles.
Beyoncé brings all that history to her version. There’s also a Paul-like playful humor in the way she makes a horse the star of her album cover. (Could Chardonneigh be the new Martha?) In other words, she is Macca Fierce.
But most of all, Bey’s version ties in mostdirectly to Sylvester’s disco version of “Blackbird” from 1979, the most outrageous and radical version ever. She evokes this song’s history in queer Black disco culture— connecting it to her whole Renaissance project. Sylvester was the first gay Black pop star who was out of the closet, as far as the public knew. Tragically, he also become one of the first stars to pass in the Eighties AIDs epidemic. But in 1979 he was back in San Francisco as a hometown hero, after breaking big nationwide. “Blackbird” is his falsetto-disco celebration from Living Proof, one of the Seventies’ greatest live albums. He was on top of the world: There was an official “Sylvester Day” in San Francisco, where he received the key to the city from the mayor, who happened to be Diane Feinstein. That night he headlined the War Memorial Opera House, and did the most beautiful “Blackbird” ever heard — until now.
Sylvester claims “Blackbird” for himself and his community. He trades call-and-response vocals (“Y’all ready, girls?”) with his backup singers, eternal disco legends Martha Wash and Izora Rhodes, the Two Tons o’ Fun. (They later blew up as the Weather Girls, belting their classic “It’s Raining Men.”) When they sing “You were only waiting for this moment to arise,” you can feel the whole crowd rise to join them. They’re not hiding out in the shadows anymore. They’re spreading their wings. It’s their night to fly. This is their song, and their moment.
Beyoncé has always loved reclaiming rock & roll as Black female performance. It’s one of her artistic passions — check her mind-blowing versions of the Doors’ “Five to One,” Alanis Morissette’s “You Oughta Know,” and even Kings of Leon’s “Sex on Fire.” She turned the Yeah Yeah Yeahs into “Hold Up.”Long before Stevie Nicks had her grand 2010s comeback, Destiny’s Child got her back on MTV with “Bootylicious.” Most spectacularly, the Lemonade classic “Don’t Hurt Yourself” is Beyoncé channeling Memphis Minnie’s “When the Levee Breaks” through Led Zeppelin, with Jack White wailing on guitar. But “Blackbird” is different, because McCartney wrote the song explicitly about Southern Black women and their struggle through American racism in the 1960s.
When Paul performed in Little Rock in 2016, he met for the first time with Thelma Mothershed Wair and Elizabeth Eckford, two of the Black women who incited so much racist controversy by trying to enter an all-white high school. Meeting these two heroes had a profound impact on him. “Incredible to meet two prisoners of the civil rights movement and inspiration for ‘Blackbird,’” Paul said at the time. “Way back in the Sixties, there was a lot of trouble going on over civil rights, particularly in Little Rock,” he told the crowd that night, introducing the song. “We would notice this on the news back in England. So it’s a really important place for us, because to me, this is where civil rights started.”
But “Blackbird” is also in the tradition of his songs about everyday women and their unseen struggles— “Eleanor Rigby” and “Lady Madonna” with the Beatles, “Another Day” and “Jennie Wren” and “Little Willow” solo. (His empathy for his female characters was always radically different from other male songwriters of his generation, to say the least.)
PHOTO CREDIT: Blair Caldwell/David Redfern/Redferns/Getty Images
Bettye LaVette did one of the most emotionally cathartic versions in 2020, a gritty old-school R&B performance at 74, singing the lyrics in the first person. She felt a deep connection as soon as she heard it, saying, ‘‘I wonder if people know he’s talking about a Black woman?’” She made it the centerpiece of her 2020 album, Blackbirds, where all the other songs were popularized by Black women singers — Nina Simone, Billie Holiday, Ruth Brown. “It is about the road that I came across on,” she told the crowd at Farm Aid 2021. “This song was written by Mr. Paul McCartney. But it is about me, and them.”
From their earliest days, they played songs by Ray Charles, Smokey Robinson, the Shirelles, Little Willie John, the Marvelettes — always aspiring to live up to that spirit. On their early U.S. tours, they refused to allow segregation at their shows in the South. (McCartney, 1964: “There’s no segregation at concerts at England, and in fact if there was, we wouldn’t play ‘em, you know?”) “Rock & roll is Black,” John told Jet magazine in 1972. “I’ll never stop acknowledging it: Black music is my life.” For both Paul and Ringo, that connection remains at the heart of their music. When Ringo turned 80 a few years ago, he hosted his Big Birthday Special livestream to raise funds for Black Lives Matter. He sat at his drums and told the worldwide audience, “Let’s say it again: Black lives matter! Stand up and make your voice heard!”
That’s why it meant so much to McCartney — more than any of them — to hear how his African American peers responded. Aretha’s versions of his songs always meant the most to him, because she heard that same Black history in these songs. When he wrote “Let It Be,” he sent her a demo in hopes she’d record it, even though he knew she would sing rings around him. (Her “Let It Be” came out in January 1970 — months before the Beatles version.) She did “The Fool on the Hill,” another song inspired by the civil rights struggle — for years, when Paul did it live, he added a sample of Dr. King’s “I Have a Dream” speech. Most of all, Aretha claimed “The Long and Winding Road,” leaving all other versions (including McCartney’s) in the dust.
For Paul, as with the other Beatles, the connection to Black American music was deep, but it was especially important for him that it to be a two-way dialogue. Beyoncé’s “Blackbird” is one that really completes the song — a profound moment in her history, the Beatles’ history, and this timeless song’s history. In so many ways, “Blackbird” has always been waiting for this moment to arise. And Beyoncé makes the song rise higher than ever before”.
Echoing and reiterating some of what Rolling Stone said regarding Blackbird’s history and meaning, The Guardian note how timely this new version is. Although many artists have shared their take on The Beatles’ Blackbird, few are as potent and moving as the one on COWBOY CARTER. Of all the cover versions of the song, I think that Beyoncé’s is the best. A natural and unforgettable highlight from COWBOY CARTER:
“Written just weeks after the assassination of Martin Luther King, the lyrics, especially the opening lines, are steeped in metaphor and symbolism. McCartney went on to tell GQ how “in England, a bird is a girl [or was in 1960s slang], so I was thinking of a Black girl going through this – you know, now is your time to arise, set yourself free, and take these broken wings”. There’s perhaps an equally oblique – if not exactly hidden – reference to the Little Rock students themselves in the line “all your life, you were only waiting for this moment to be free”. (Shortly before John Lennon was assassinated in 1980, he claimed to have contributed one “important” line to the song, although took the identity of the line to his grave.)
The finished recording – which features McCartney, his guitar and tapping foot, along with blackbird sounds from an effects tape – took the Beatle 32 takes before he was happy with it. Years later, in 2016, McCartney played Little Rock and met Thelma Mothershed-Wair and Elizabeth Eckford, two of the original students, and tweeted that it was: “Incredible to meet two of the Little Rock Nine – pioneers of the civil rights movement and inspiration for Blackbird.”
Beyoncé is by no means the first artist to cover Blackbird. The likes of Billy Preston, Sarah McLachlan, Crosby, Stills & Nash, the Dandy Warhols and even Dave Grohl have all had a go. But her version has a deep resonance: a spiritual interpretation with subtle strings, it pointedly features the Black American country stars Brittney Spencer, Tanner Adell, Tiera Kennedy and Reyna Roberts – musicians who have struggled to gain a foothold in the notoriously gate-kept Nashville establishment in which women and Black artists are often marginalised. By introducing the song and its historic meaning to her vast, largely youthful audience, Beyoncé has given this timeless, but always timely, gem a new moment to arise”.
I want to finish up with an article from the BBC. They write how BLACKBIRD is the key to COWBOY CARTER. It is an extraordinary and individual rendition of a song that means to much to so many people. Over fifty-five years after its original release, it is still being interpreted and covered by artists. It shows the power and genius of Paul McCartney’s songwriting:
“It feels appropriate, then, that Beyoncé has not only covered the song, but used it as an opportunity to showcase the talents of four other black women. On Blackbiird – the name slightly tweaked to reference that Cowboy Carter is the act ii of a three-part musical project – Beyoncé collaborates with four black female country singers: Tanner Adell, Brittney Spencer, Tiera Kennedy and Reyna Roberts. Adell, who released her debut album Bunny Buckle last year, has built a huge following on TikTok, a way of bypassing the traditional gatekeepers of country music and forging her own path. After Beyoncé announced her new country direction at this year's Super Bowl, Adell tweeted: "As one of the only black girls in the country music scene, I hope Bey decides to sprinkle me with a dash of her magic for a collab." (It's not clear yet if Adell was a last minute addition on the album, or if she already knew something we didn’t).
Standing on the shoulders of giants
Beyoncé is not the first black artist to cover Blackbird: musicians including Bettye LaVette, The Paragons, Anderson. Paak, Ramsey Lewis and more have put their take on McCartney's song. But as with everything Beyoncé does, the choice is intentional and when she, helped along by four new exciting voices in country music, sings: "You were only waiting for this moment to arise," it feels like a significant moment.
Cowboy Carter is both an act of defiance and a valuable lesson in cultural history
Research by digital publication The Pudding found that, out of 182,848 songs played across 29 country music stations over 19 days in 2023, just 14 were by black women. Even the force of Beyoncé's star power wasn't enough to get her access to the club; when she performed her song Daddy Lessons with The Chicks at the Country Music Association Awards in 2016 she faced a backlash from some who thought she didn't belong there. In a statement apparently referencing this, posted on Instagram before Cowboy Carter's release, she says the album was: "born out of an experience that I had years ago where I did not feel welcomed… and it was very clear that I wasn't. Because of that experience, I did a deeper dive into the history of Country music and studied our rich musical archive."
Beyoncé has taken the up the challenge to show that she has just as much right to take on country music as anyone else – and she's also used it as an opportunity to showcase the talents of others. Amid the headlining grabbing appearances from Miley Cyrus, Dolly Parton, Post Malone and Willie Nelson, the album features lesser-known artists old and new, including banjo player Rhiannon Giddens and Nigerian-American singer Shaboozey.
The Linda Martell Show pays tribute to one of the most significant yet underappreciated female country singers of all time. Martell – who also appears on the track Spaghetti – was the first solo black female country singer to achieve significant commercial success – despite only releasing one album, Color Me Country. The record gave her several big country hits, and she was the first female black country singer to appear at the prestigious Nashville venue Grand Ole Opry, but she frequently came up against racism from both the industry and public and her career was cut short. With an appearance on Cowboy Carter, more people might now realise the contribution she made.
Beyoncé recently said that she she was "honoured" to become the first black woman to top Billboard's Hot Country Songs chart, but she also knows she is standing on the shoulders of many other musicians who have grappled with a genre that continues to be hostile to them. On this album she makes sure we're aware of who many of those are – from the trailblazers of the past, to the voices of the future.
But while Cowboy Carter is both an act of defiance and a valuable lesson in cultural history, Beyoncé herself has said that, one day, she hopes the music can stand on its own – whatever genre. "My hope is that years from now, the mention of an artist's race, as it relates to releasing genres of music, will be irrelevant”.
It has been interesting featuring Beyoncé’s cover of Blackbird. I am not sure many people expected it to feature on her new album. Among a small selection of covers (including Dolly Parton’s Jolene), we see Beyoncé’s gifts and ability as an interpreter. She makes the song her own, though she also makes it an anthem for others. If you have not heard Beyoncé’s version of Blackbird, I would thoroughly recommend it. It is perhaps the standout of her…
STUNNING new album.