The Halifax 2009 performance

Blackbird is a perennial Beatles favorite. The song was written by McCartney and followed his nine weeks with the Maharishi at Rishikesh, India. Paul was there to study Transcendental Meditation and find his bearings after a grueling period of touring and recording. He was there with John, Ringo and George who led The Beatles in all things Eastern. While at Rishikesh both John and Paul learned folk style finger picking from Donovan. The wealth of acoustic songs on The White Album came from that experience including Blackbird, John’s Julia and Mother Nature’s Son.

In the song intro in Halifax, Paul said he was inspired by civil rights strife. The blackbird symbolized the struggle he said.

Performance notes

This performance is from the Halifax August 2009 concert that started McCartney’s 2009 tour. It was recorded on a Sony camera. The full HD performance can be seen in the double CD/DVD Good Evening New York City (Deluxe Edition) [2CD/2DVD].

Learning Blackbird

Blackbird is a favorite of guitar players and numerous tabs exist on the internet. The song is relatively easy to learn although getting it smooth requires practice. Here is one of the better teaching videos from YouTube. There are others which you can find by searching “Blackbird guitar”

The performance is copyrighted by MPL communications Ltd and used under fair use or fair play for purposes of this story. We recommend that people purchase the music they wish to listen to or watch.