Beyoncé’s recently released album, ‘Cowboy Carter’, has generated a lot of buzz among her fans. The album, which is the second in a trilogy that began with 2022’s ‘Renaissance’, includes a cover of The Beatles’ classic song ‘Blackbird’, which has been renamed ‘Blackbiird’ for this album. The song choice has been particularly significant given the album’s themes concerning race in American music history and Beyoncé’s embrace of country music influences. Other notable covers on the album include Dolly Parton’s ‘Jolene’.
‘Blackbird’ was written by Paul McCartney during the civil rights struggle of the 1960s, just weeks after the assassination of Dr Martin Luther King Jr. McCartney is quoted in the book ‘Many Years from Now’ as saying that the song is “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.’” Beyoncé’s version of the song maintains McCartney’s original guitar part but adds the harmonised vocals of Black country singers Brittney Spencer, Reyna Roberts, Tanner Adell and Tiera Kennedy.
Social media has been full of emotional reactions to the song, with fans particularly moved by the choice to feature Black female country singers. One Twitter user said: “Paul McCartney wrote Blackbird about a Black woman during the civil rights movement so for Beyoncé to put the Black country girls on this specific song. I’m going to be so normal about my favorite song.” Another wrote: “All the black country girlies on blackbird where tf is my box of tissue bitch.”
The album also features appearances from Post Malone and Miley Cyrus, although there is no sign of the long-rumoured Taylor Swift collaboration. Ahead of the album’s release, Beyoncé addressed some of the backlash she had received for exploring country music on Instagram, writing that the album had been “over five years in the making” and that her experience of feeling unwelcome in country music circles had prompted her to “do a deeper dive into the history of Country music and study our rich musical archive.
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