Beyoncé and Paul McCartney
“Say a prayer for what has been… Them old ideas are buried here” — Beyoncé, “AMEN”
“Sometimes when I’m writing songs I will think there’s people out there who are going through some problems and hopefully people out there will listen to it and think ‘oh yeah, it’s not just me alone going through this.’” — Paul McCartney with GQ
Beyoncé made clear prior to Cowboy Carter’s release that “This ain’t a country album. This is a Beyoncé album.” Though there is a clear country vibe and influence, much like Lemonade, this album is a fusion of several genres — country, rock, the blues, folk, rap, gospel, trap, and a little opera. While the album has been praised by many outlets, perhaps the highest praise anyone could get came just last week from the living legend himself: Sir Paul McCartney.
McCartney posted on Instagram on April 4, writing:
“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!
I spoke to her on FaceTime and she thanked me for writing it and letting her do it. 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.”
We’ve heard Beyoncé cover songs, but never on her own albums. Her cover and mashup of “The Beautiful Ones” by Prince and “Sex on Fire” by Kings of Leon at the Glastonbury Festival in 2011, her tribute to Stevie Wonder in 2015 was legendary, performing “Proud Mary” at the 2005 Kennedy Center Honors with Tina Turner watching from the audience. Beyoncé covered Dolly Parton’s “Jolene” (yes, the legend is true that Parton wrote “Jolene” and “I Will Always Love You” in the same day, a versatile, lyrical queen) and The Beatles’ “Blackbird.”
If we look back at The Beatles’ first few albums, Please Please Me and With the Beatles, we see several covers, specifically covers of Black artists who were signed to Motown Records. For example, “Twist and Shout,” originally sung by The Isley Brothers; “Please Mr. Postman,” originally sung by The Marvelettes; “Roll Over Beethoven,” by Chuck Berry; “You Really Got a Hold On Me,” by Smokey Robinson and the Miracles; and “Dizzy Miss Lizzy” by Larry Williams.
What makes The Beatles different from other acts covering Motown songs is that they credited the artists and were vocal about their admiration. They were all big Chuck Berry fans. John Lennon, in particular, was a huge Smokey Robinson fan, often joking that he tried to emulate the singer with no luck and that no one could compare to Robinson. While The Beatles became famous for crossing the pond, their witticisms during interviews, and their mop-top hairstyles, they were very vocal about the Civil Rights Movement in the U.S.
In 1964, the group refused to play a segregated venue in Jacksonville, Florida. Larry Kane, a journalist who toured with The Beatles throughout their U.S. tour, said, “It was amazing that the four of them… started to act up and blow back on this very, very hot and sensitive issue, knowing that it would really irritate a lot of Americans.” When I was a teacher, the principal of the school once informed me that because she went to a Catholic high school, they were not permitted to listen to The Beatles because Lennon had said in 1966, “We’re [The Beatles] more popular than Jesus now; I don’t know which will go first — rock ’n’ roll or Christianity” and years later would sing in “Imagine” “imagine there’s no heaven… no hell below us.”
Even though The Beatles are legendary and are often considered the greatest music act of all time, they, too, were once “too political,” as Beyoncé is often labeled now.
Inspiration came from many places for The Beatles, but a few of their songs came from McCartney and Lennon reading newspaper articles like “She’s Leaving Home” and “A Day in the Life.” When McCartney saw photos of Black girls trying to integrate schools in the U.S., he was incredibly upset. Similarly, these photos inspired author James Baldwin to return to the United States from his self-imposed exile in France. The whole world saw how the United States was treating Black people and were horrified that young, Black girls were treated in such a horrific manner.
McCartney wrote “Blackbird” for the Black girls of the Civil Rights Movement in Alabama, Mississippi, and Little Rock, according to an interview with GQ. “Blackbird” is a quiet, beautiful, simplistic song, with only guitar chords and foot tapping. We hear McCartney singing gently, an anthem disguised as a lullaby: “Take these broken wings and learn to fly.” Wanting to inspire hope and ease racial tensions, the song encourages listeners to know that they can rise above difficult situations and that they are not alone.
In the interview with GQ, he says:
“It’d be really good if I could write something that if it ever reached any of the people going through those problems it might kind of give them a little bit of hope… One of the nice things about music is that you know the lot of people listening to you are going to take seriously what you’re saying in the song so I’m very proud of the fact that the Beatles’ output is always really pretty positive.”
Even though Beyoncé was not born when this song was written, in some magic way, it seems McCartney wrote the song for her, too. Though I, and every member of the Beyhive, believe that Beyoncé can accomplish anything whilst looking incredible and always staying on beat, she is not always seen this way by others. In an Instagram post announcing that Cowboy Carter would be country influenced, she admitted that she has not always felt welcome in certain spaces. Though she didn’t name it outright, fans knew that she was referring to the 2016 CMAs, where Beyoncé performed her country-influenced song “Daddy Lessons” with The Chicks, to the dismay of thousands of country fans, claiming that Beyoncé has no place in the genre.
She was received with a barrage of racist insults. Even though McCartney publicly praised Beyoncé’s cover of “Blackbird” the comments section of the post are flooded with “real Beatles fans” who refuse to listen to her version and/or denounce that she could ever sing it like him, which completely goes against everything The Beatles stood for. Cowboy Carter, and in particular “BLACKBIIRD,” is a message to these racists who don’t appreciate her: all Beyoncé’s life, she’s been waiting for this moment to arise. She had McCartney’s support long before she even existed.
Beyoncé and McCartney are true legends in music because they are innovators and have never shied away from experimentation. McCartney has collaborated with Kanye West for “Only One” and “Four Five Seconds” with Rihanna. He’s worked with up-and-coming artists like Dominic Fike for “Kiss of Venus.” He’s composed and written classical music, like “Oceans Kingdom” and “Working Classical.” He’s even interpolated classical music into some Beatles songs. In fact, “Blackbird” utilizes interpolation of Bach’s ‘Bourrée in E minor!’ Yet no one ever tells McCartney to stay in his lane. No classical composers have risen from the dead to haunt him for using their music.
Cowboy Carter is the first time Beyoncé has featured covers on her album, each one of great importance. She turns Dolly Parton’s “Jolene” into a direct threat and not-so-friendly reminder to Becky with the good hair to stay away from her man. We know Beyoncé has been through infidelity. She sang about it long before Lemonade too, like in “Ring the Alarm” and most notably “Resentment.” She alludes to The Beach Boys’ “Good Vibrations” on “YA YA” when she sings “I’m pickin’ up good vibrations, he’s givin’ me sweet sensations.” She sings an Opera aria, “Caro Mio Ben,” on “DAUGHTER.” But there is so much significance and beauty to her cover of “BLACKBIIRD.”
She featured four other artists on “BLACKBIIRD:” Tanner Adell, Brittney Spencer, Tiera Kennedy, and Reyna Roberts. All four are Black women who are in country music. The fact that this is the second song on the hour and a half long album, following the opening “AMERIICAN REQUIEM,” is significant. Beyoncé is letting people know, she has been in music for nearly three decades, she is not going anywhere, and neither are these artists. As I’ve written previously, Black country artists are the foundation of the genre. Beyoncé, being proudly from Houston, Texas, has every right to create an album with other country artists like Parton, Willie Nelson, and Linda Martell and to feature people from the south like Miley Cyrus.
Her experimentation and innovation should be admired, just as McCartney’s is. McCartney even said her version featuring four other Black women drives home the song's message: they will always rise above and will always have allies to support them.
