Paul McCartney has praised Beyoncé’s version of the Beatles’ civil rights song, Blackbird, which features on her recent album Cowboy Carter.
Beyoncé dropped her much awaited country music record last week, with Beyoncé and Beatles fans alike in awe of her cover of ‘Blackbird’, the second track on the album.
One week on from the release of Cowboy Country, Paul McCartney, who wrote and recorded the original version of Blackbird, posted on Instagram, applauding Beyoncé’s “fab version”.
“I am so happy with @beyonce’s version of my song ‘Blackbird’,” McCartney wrote.
“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!”
McCartney shared with his fans that he spoke with Beyoncé on FaceTime, who thanked the Beatles legend for writing the song and granting her permission to cover it.
“I told her the pleasure was all mine and I thought she had done a killer version of the song,” McCartney said.
Variety magazine confirmed that Beyoncé’s cover on Cowboy Carter uses the original instrumentals on the Beatles’ 1968 recording of Blackbird, which features on the rock band’s White Album.
McCartney wrote and recorded the song himself during the civil rights movement in the United States during the 1960s. He has previously revealed part of his inspiration came from the Little Rock Nine, a group of Black teenagers in Arkansas who tried to enrol in an all-white high school in 1957.
“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,” McCartney wrote in his recent Instagram post.
“Anything my song and Beyoncé’s fabulous version can do to ease racial tension would be a great thing and makes me very proud.”
In his 1997 memoir, Many Years From Now, McCartney said the song ‘Blackbird’ is from him to a Black woman.
“Those were the days of the civil rights movement, which all of us cared passionately about, so this was really a song from me to a Black woman, experiencing these problems in the States: ‘Let me encourage you to keep trying, to keep your faith, there is hope’,” he wrote in his memoir.
Beyoncé’s cover of ‘Blackbird’ features four Black women country artists: Tanner Adell, Tiera Kennedy, Reyna Roberts and Brittney Spencer. The song has be listened to nearly 13 million times on Spotify.
It’s not the only cover Beyoncé has recorded on Cowboy Carter: she also has recorded a cover of Dolly Parton’s 1973 single, Jolene.
Upon the release of Beyoncé’s version on Cowboy Carter last week, Dolly Parton posted on Instagram.
“Wow, I just heard Jolene,” she wrote.
“Beyoncé is giving that girl som trouble and she deserves it! Love, Dolly P.”
When Cowboy Carter dropped last week, it broke the record for the most-streamed album in a single day in 2024 so far.
“This is also the first time a country album holds the title this year,” Spotify wrote in an Instagram post.