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Cover of the week - Blackbird (Beatles) (47 songs)






From Wikipedia:
"Blackbird" is a Beatles song from double-disc album The Beatles (also known as The White Album). Blackbird was written by Paul McCartney, who was inspired to write this while in Scotland as a reaction to racial tensions escalating in America in the spring of 1968.


Blackbird singing in the dead of night
Take these broken wings and learn to fly
All your life
You were only waiting for this moment to arise

Black bird singing in the dead of night
Take these sunken eyes and learn to see
all your life
you were only waiting for this moment to be free

Blackbird fly, Blackbird fly
Into the light of the dark black night.

Blackbird fly, Blackbird fly
Into the light of the dark black night.

Blackbird singing in the dead of night
Take these broken wings and learn to fly
All your life
You were only waiting for this moment to arise,oh
You were only waiting for this moment to arise, oh
You were only waiting for this moment to arise

McCartney revealed on PBS's Great Performances (Paul McCartney: Chaos and Creation at Abbey Road), aired in 2006, that the guitar accompaniment for Blackbird was inspired by Bach's Bourr�e in E minor, a well known classical guitar piece. As kids, he and George Harrison tried to learn Bourr�e as a "show off" piece. Bourr�e is distinguished by melody and bass notes played simultaneously on the upper and lower strings. McCartney adapted a segment of Bourr�e as the opening of "Blackbird," and carried the musical idea throughout the song.

Paul McCartney wrote the song in his kitchen in Scotland while watching racial tension erupt in America. The song was recorded just two months after Martin Luther King was killed.

The first night Linda Eastman, who would later become his wife, slept over, McCartney played it to the fans camped outside his house.

Composition and recording:

The song was recorded 11 June 1968 in Abbey Road studios, with George Martin as the producer and Geoff Emerick as the audio engineer.[3] McCartney played a Martin D 28 acoustic guitar. The track includes recordings of a blackbird singing in the background.[3]

The structure of the song is quite uneven, featuring a good amount of free verse phrasing, with the timing varying between 3/4, 4/4 and 2/4 metres. It is in the key of G, with the bass and melody lines on the guitar progressing mostly in parallel tenths, all the while maintaining an open G-drone on the third string. The song is played with a unique combination of fingerpicking and (a kind of) finger-strumming, though the bass notes are always played by the thumb on the downbeat.

The song starts with an intro whose chords progress through I-II7(no5)-I6/3 up to the I chord played an octave higher. The verse begins with the same progression before moving into a long phrase starting on the IV chord with the bass notes ascending in half-steps up to the VI chord, before descending (also in half-steps) back to the IV. They descend still further back to the I chord, before launching into an instrumental interlude, a shortened four-measure backward recounting of the verse. The second verse follows, though this time it skips the interlude, going directly into the refrain.[4]

An instrumental reprisal of the verse, followed by the refrain (with vocals), leads back into the intro phrase whose last chord is repeatedly played for a couple of measures before making way for the introduction of the birds-chirping overdub. There is another brief instrumental interlude, which contains phrases from the intro and the verse, before going into a reprisal of the first verse and ending with an outro, containing the same sequence of chords as the first interlude.

The song uses only a guitar, vocals, a steady tapping, and birdsong-overdub. The tapping rhythm is revealed on Beatles Anthology to be Paul's feet tapping on the wooden floor of the studio.

Though according to The Compleat Beatles, the rhythm is produced by an intentional scratch made on the Master, there exists a video that shows McCartney tapping his feet on the floor, while singing an early version of the song, producing the percussion that can be heard in the recorded version.[citation needed]

In 2009, Paul McCartney performed this song at the Coachella festival, afterward commenting on how it had been written in response to the 1960s Civil Rights movement, and stated "Now you've got President Obama. Yeah, you know we've come a long way." .




The original(s):
You'll find 4 songs in the archive:

Beatles - Blackbird (White Album)(1968)
Beatles - Blackbird (Anthology Album)(1996)
Paul McCartney - Blackbird (Live) from the album wings over America (1976)
Paul McCartney - Blackbird (Unplugged (The Official Bootleg) (1991)

Code:

http://rapidshare.com/files/230470325/blackbirdoriginal.rar

The covers:



Arturo Sandoval - Blackbird.mp3
Beatles - Blackbird-Yesterday.mp3
Betsy Pecanins - Blackbird.mp3
Billy Preston - Blackbird.mp3
Bobby McFerrin - Blackbird.mp3
Carly Simon - Blackbird.mp3
Carly Smithson - Blackbird (Studio Version).mp3
Chris De Burgh - Blackbird.mp3
Chris Hinze - Blackbird.mp3
Colin Linden - Blackbird.mp3
Crosby, Stills & Nash - Blackbird.mp3
Dave Valentin - Blackbird.mp3
Desmond Dekker - Blackbird.mp3
Dionne Farris - Blackbird.wma
Ellioth Smith - Blackbird.mp3
Emmanuel Santarromana - Blackbird.mp3
Eros - Blackbird.mp3
Evan Rachal Wood - Blackbird.mp3
Foo Fighters - Blackbird (Dave Grohl Solo Acoustic).mp3
G Love & Special Sauce - Blackbird.mp3
Herman van Veen - Blackbird.mp3
Jamie Findlay - Blackbird.mp3
John - Blackbird (Beatles cover).mp3
Jose Feliciano - Blackbird.mp3
Judy Collins - Blackbird.mp3
Kenny Rankin - Blackbird.mp3
King's Singers - Blackbird (A capella).mp3
La Fragua -Blackbird.mp3
Maggie Macneal - Blackbird.mp3
Micky Dolenz - Blackbird.mp3
Monte Montgomery - Blackbird.mp3
Moses Jones - Blackbird.mp3
Rick Wakeman - Blackbird.mp3
Sarah Mclachlan - Blackbird.mp3
Sarah Vaughan - Blackbird.mp3
Sister Love - Blackbird.mp3
Sylvain Luc & Bireli Lagrene - Blackbird.mp3
Sylvester - Blackbird.mp3
The Waterboys - Sweet Thing.mp3
Third Day - Blackbird.mp3
Trijntje Oosterhuis - Blackbird.mp3
U2 - Beautiful Day (Live8).mp3
Wietse Wind - Blackbird.mp3

Edit:blackbird 6 added

1. BeatleJazz - Blackbird (4:08)
2. Beatles Blackbird Vibafemba acapella quintet choir stereo (3:17)
3. Blackbird - Sisler Jazz Choir (2:45)
4. Craig Bauer - Blackbird (2:30)
5. Doves-Blackbird (2:41)
6. Emmerson Nogueira - Blackbird (2:19)
7. Giacomo Bondi - Blackbird (4:32)
8. Jason Falkner - Blackbird (3:38)
9. jeff milligan - blackbird (5:22)
10. Julie Fowlis - Blackbird (2:39)
11. Los De La Flauta - Blackbird (2:24)
12. Mark JazzUkes Occhionero - Blackbird (1:38)
13. Michal Elznic - Blackbird (1:31)
14. Classic - Blackbird (2:29)

Code:

http://rapidshare.com/files/230417444/Blackbird1.rar http://rapidshare.com/files/230433533/Blackbird2.rar http://rapidshare.com/files/230446269/Blackbird3.rar http://rapidshare.com/files/230455712/Blackbird4.rar http://rapidshare.com/files/230467097/Blackbird5.rar http://rapidshare.com/files/241250961/Blackbird6.rar

Link checked on Wed Jul 01, 2009 2:51 pm [WBB_Linkchecker_Bot]