Paul McCartney is praising Beyoncé for her cover of his Beatles' classic, "Blackbird." The song, which Beyoncé retitled "Blackbiird" (with two i's) is the second track on her recently released Cowboy Carter album and includes McCartney's original acoustic guitar backing track, along with up-and-coming Black country singers Tanner Adell, Brittney Spencer, Tiera Kennedy, and Reyna Roberts.
"I am so happy with @beyonce's version of my song 'Blackbird.' I think she does a magnificent version of it and it reinforces the civil rights message that inspired me to write the song in the first place. I think Beyoncé has done a fab version and would urge anyone who has not heard it yet to check it out. You are going to love it!" McCartney posted to Instagram on Thursday (April 4).
"I spoke to her on FaceTime and she thanked me for writing it and letting her do it," he continued. "I told her the pleasure was all mine and I thought she had done a killer version of the song. When I saw the footage on the television in the early '60s of the Black girls being turned away from school, I found it shocking and I can't believe that still in these days there are places where this kind of thing is happening right now. Anything my song and Beyoncé's fabulous version can do to ease racial tension would be a great thing and makes me very proud."
McCartney's version of "Blackbird" originally appeared on The Beatles' chart-topping 1968 self-titled double album, commonly referred to as "The White Album," due to its plain white cover.
"At the time in 1968 when I was writing 'Blackbird', I was very conscious of the terrible racial tensions in the US.," McCartney wrote in his 2021 book The Lyrics: 1956 to the Present. "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."
