The Hidden Meaning Of The Beatles' "Blackbird"

Publish date: 2024-05-02

According to Rolling Stone, McCartney was actually inspired to pen the song by a particular group... the Little Rock Nine – nine Black students who volunteered to integrate the previously segregated Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas in 1957. The teenagers were met with hostility at the school's entrance, sparking the Little Rock Crisis. Rather than dealing with the issue of desegregation, Arkansas' governor decided to close schools for the year. 

McCartney, reports Rolling Stone, met surviving members of the Little Rock Nine in 2016. In tribute to them, he sang "Blackbird" live, tweeting afterward, "Incredible to meet two of the Little Rock Nine— pioneers of the civil rights movement and inspiration for Blackbird."

Today, performers usually sing "Blackbird" to portray something inspirational, or even during memorials, like in the 2016 Academy Awards when Dave Grohl of the Foo Fighters covered the song for the In Memoriam segment. "Blackbird" is not an avian flight of fancy, but deeply resonant song about people yearning to be set free.

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