During the last two decades, the American pop star Beyoncé became one of the most successful singers of all time. She sold an estimated amount of more than 200 million records worldwide and every new album she becomes a huge event for the fans.
She recently announced “Cowboy Carter”, her eight studio album that besides original tracks, will also feature a few covers. One of them is a version of The Beatles classic song “Blackbird”, which was written by Paul McCartney. The musician praised Beyoncé’s version, which uses original parts of the song and he also said that he talked with her via “facetime” recently to talk about the song.
Paul McCartney praised the Beyoncé version of “Blackbird”, saying:
“I am so happy with Beyoncé’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,” Paul McCartney said.
“Blackbird” was originally released by the Beatles as a single in 1968, being also featured on their self-titled album released in the same year. Although it was credited to “Lennon-McCartney”, the track was actually written by Paul.
He also recorded the track alone, singing (including backing vocals), playing the guitar, tape loops and foot taping. Since McCartney embraced the Beatles catalog on his solo concerts, the track has been performed constantly by him. It’s usually a high point of his current show, since he gets elevated on stage and it’s only him and the guitar.
He still didn’t have the chance to work with Beyoncé but in 2015, Paul recorded the track “FourFiveSeconds” with Kanye West and Rihanna, who are also successful pop artists when Beyoncé was becoming a huge Pop star in the early 2000s.