THE BEATLES - BLACKBIRD (REHEARSAL TAKE)

This is one of the most famous Beatles tracks,

and considering how famous ALL of their music, that's an accomplishment. This is a Paul McCartney song, written, played and sung by him. The guitar part was influenced by Bach's chorales, and the 4 part harmonies he would use. You can definitely hear that here in this track, although there is also some blues influence with the passing tones, and some very Beatles-esque stuff with the fill part, particularly in the pseudo-key change that happens.

The song is in G major and uses some interesting chords;

Instead of playing a major 3rd, Paul plays the root note, and a 12th above, so it moves the 3rd (the defining note of the chord) up an octave. This is basically the case for every chord in this song, which is what gives it that Bach, baroque-harmony sort of sound.

The "Blackbird Fly" portion of the song

is where it feels almost like a key change, although technically it doesn't have to be (not sure what the original intent was). Paul plays Fmajor, Eminor, Dminor, Cmajor, and Bbmajor (which is where we begin to feel like we are in C major with a flat Vii), but then we get EVEN weirder, after this section repeats, we go even lower to an A major (which is out of key in BOTH Gmaj and Cmaj). However, the A major chord is also used as a passing chord in the chorus section, so it actually works out perfectly and by playing a C major after, we move easily back into G major.

The lyrics in this song are incredible,

and were a social commentary about the civil rights movement. The Beatles began to make much more socially conscience music, after realizing that they had the biggest platform in the world and were only singing about girls and love, they decided to make more of a political statement.

Enjoy the song! Thanks for the support!

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