Song: Blackbird Artist: The Beatles (Paul McCartney) (Originally published Nov.28, 2012)

On Sunday, Nov.25th, I finally saw a Beatle. Now, for me, this was a once-in-a-lifetime experience because I have been listening to the music of the Beatles since I was six years old, when the Beatles first arrived in North America, physically and musically. Paul McCartney returned to Vancouver BC for the first time in 48 years, and I and my family knew that this might be our last chance to see him here, since he’d only been here once before in 1964! Who knows if he’ll ever make it this way again?

His concert was fantastic; for a 70-year-old to be able to play 3 straight hours with only taking a moment to have a sip of water here and there was amazing enough, but he had twice the talent and charm of many of his younger counterparts and his performance was impeccable. And all done with no autotune, all live and completely real!  Try to do that for three hours you young bucks!

I’ll never forget that evening. Thanks Paul.

So I’ve decided to talk about one of his songs, one that I’ve been playing for years (incorrectly, by the way!) and one that he says he gets nervous playing because so many others play it and would know if he made a mistake!  That song is Blackbird.

One of the things I didn’t know about the song was the story behind it, which he told on Sunday night.  It was written during the Civil Rights Movement in the U.S., and McCartney’s intention in writing it was to encourage the black population in their quest for freedom, equality and tolerance.  It gave the lyrics a whole new meaning for me and I will be sure to tell that story every time I teach it in future. I always get requests from my students to learn Blackbird, which proves its continual appeal and popularity.  In fact, the other day I sat with a student as she showed me how she had taught herself most of it, not having any idea where it came from or who wrote it, but simply having heard a friend of hers playing it.  I was happy to tell her all about it, and how I’d just heard the writer perform the song himself 🙂

It is a simple song, comprised of three verses and a bridge which is repeated and often considered as a chorus.  I really don’t think it’s a chorus…somehow, musically it just feels more like it plays the part of a bridge in the song.  If I had a chance to ask Paul how he thinks of it, I would!

Now, onto the lyrics:

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

Blackbird 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

BRIDGE:
Blackbird fly, blackbird fly
Into the light of the dark black night 

[instrumental verse]

BRIDGE:
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 
You were only waiting for this moment to arise 
You were only waiting for this moment to arise

Do you see what I mean?  Very, very simple lyrically, but when you couple it with its meaning and its purpose, it is very powerful.

The guitar in it is equally as sweet, sounding simple, but it’s not a beginner’s song by any means because it means travelling up the neck to the 10th and 12th frets and back down again.  In fact, it uses almost the entire fret range of an acoustic guitar.  The beauty of it, though, is that you could play it by itself and it would still be a great instrumental, and as soon as you start playing it, people know what it is.  I’ve always finger picked it, but Paul actually does a bass note pick with a little strum instead.  The arrangement consists only of the guitar, his vocal (occasionally doubled) and one simple beat in the background.  The true sign of a great song is when it needs nothing more than that!

Paul has written many, many wonderful songs over the years and performed a lot of them on Sunday night.  It was a beautiful experience for me to hear them live for the first time and to see this master songwriter in the flesh, just as charming and wonderful as ever.

Have a listen to the song below. It doesn’t get any better than that!
~ IJ

Song: A Team Artist: Ed Sheeran (Originally published May 7, 2012)

This is another song discovery that came from one of my guitar students, a young girl of course :-).  Ed Sheeran is only 21 years old but he already has a maturity in his songwriting and guitar playing far beyond that.  He’s from the UK, which is obvious when you hear him sing certain words.  This particular song is about a young woman who has been brutally beaten up by a world of drugs and prostitution, but instead of telling you anything beyond that, I’ll post the lyrics.

White lips, pale face
Breathing in the snowflakes
Burnt lungs, sour taste
Light’s gone, days end
Struggling to pay rent
Long nights, strange men

CHORUS:

And they say
She’s in the Class A Team
Stuck in her daydream
Been this way since 18
But lately, her face seems
Slowly sinking, wasting
Crumbling like pastries
And they scream
The worst things in life come free to us

‘Cause we’re just under the upper hand
And go mad for a couple grams
And she don’t wanna go outside tonight
And in a pipe she flies to the motherland
Or sells love to another man
It’s too cold outside
For angels to fly
Angels to fly

Ripped gloves, raincoat
Tried to swim, stay afloat
Dry house, wet clothes
Loose change, bank notes
Weary-eyed, dry throat
Call girl, no phone

[REPEAT CHORUS]

BRIDGE:

An angel will die
Covered in white
Closed eyes and hopin’ for a better life
This time, we’ll fade out tonight
Straight down the line

[REPEAT CHORUS]

LAST CHORUS:

And we’re all under the upper hand
And go mad for a couple grams
And we don’t wanna go outside tonight
And in the pipe, fly to the motherland
Or sell love to another man
It’s too cold outside
For angels to fly
Angels to fly
Fly, fly
For angels to fly, to fly, to fly
Angels to die

The two things that appeal to me most about this song are Ed Sheeran’s voice and guitar playing.  But there are some interesting he does with the lyrics, especially this section:

Been this way since 18
But lately, her face seems
Slowly sinking, wasting
Crumbling like pastries
And they scream

This is a series of five lines that rhyme;  not perfect rhymes on all occasions, but each two syllables long whether they are one word or two.  And on each of those he uses the same two notes, higher than any other note in the song.  Now my rule of thumb has always been to only repeat something three times or it starts to feel like too much, but in this case that rule appears to go out the window.  It just works.

I also like the phrase “in a pipe, she flies to the Motherland”…there are a lot of visual elements in the verses, which have short, descriptive phrases in contrast to the chorus which expands into longer lines and phrases. One of the things songwriters often struggle with is the idea of contrast;  you want the verses and the chorus to be distinct from each other (and other song parts like pre-choruses and bridges too), and there are a number of ways to achieve that contrast.  One obvious way is by creating distinct melodies and chord progressions, which this song also does.  But look at this first verse:

White lips, pale face
Breathing in the snowflakes
Burnt lungs, sour taste
Light’s gone, days end
Struggling to pay rent
Long nights, strange men

You don’t need to watch a video to get a sense of a cold and tired person and difficult circumstances.  Line 1, 3, 4 and 6 are mostly two sets of adjectives and nouns (white lips, pale face, where the words “white” and “pale” are the adjectives and “lips” and “face” are nouns, for those of you who forget those terms!).  Simple, but powerfully succinct writing.  The chorus begins with shorter lines, but then builds into longer ones as the chord progressions.  It’s almost like the first 8 short lines are actually a pre-chorus and some might label them as such.  However, they contain the title of the song, which some might argue denotes the chorus.

When I worked this song out, I instinctively put the capo on the 2nd fret because I could hear the bass run down from a “G” to an “Em”, and in watching a solo acoustic version of Sheeran performing it, I saw that he had his capo exactly there.  He has a nice, percussive style of playing, where he’ll throw in a chord or bass change for a beat or two just to make it more interesting.  In fact, I chose to show that video below as opposed to the fancier, produced version, because you get a sense of how a great song stands on its own with the right performance of it.

I certainly recommend listening to the recorded version as well.  Nothing in the production gets in the way of the song.  I’ve listened to his song “Drunk” and was not as impressed, but I’m certainly going to check out some of his other songs.

In the meantime, have a listen to the song in the video below.

~ IJ

Song: Wichita Lineman Artist: Glen Campbell (Originally published March 5, 2012)

I recently saw Glen Campbell perform on the Grammys and was struck by his courage to be out there performing even though he has been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s Disease.  One of the interesting things about the brain is that when you learn music, or a musical instrument, your whole brain is engaged, as opposed to just part of it devoted to something like speech or face recognition.  So Alzheimer’s patients will often remember lyrics and melodies to songs (or remember how to play piano for instance), well after they have forgotten who their closest family members are.  It’s an interesting aspect of music that I also see with my father who has Alzheimer’s.  He still remembers me at this point, but much of his personality has been destroyed by the disease.  Still, he can remember old songs with little or no effort!

But that’s not what this post is about :-).  This is about one of my favourite all time songs, Wichita Lineman.  It was written in 1968 by someone who many songwriters consider to be a songwriting guru, Jimmy Webb.  The song became a hit for Glen Campbell on the pop, adult contemporary and country charts that year and certified gold in 1969.

Part of the charm of that version was, of course, Glen Campbell’s wonderful voice and guitar playing.  The story behind the song, according to Wikipedia, goes as follows: “Jimmy Webb’s inspiration for the lyrics came while driving through Washita County in rural northern Oklahoma. At that time, many telephone companies were county-owned utilities and their linemen were, in fact, county employees. Heading westward on a straight road into the setting sun, Webb was driving through an endless litany of telephone poles, each looking exactly the same as the last. Then, in the distance, he noticed the silhouette of a solitary lineman atop a pole. He described it as “the picture of loneliness.” Webb then “put himself atop that pole and put that phone in his hand” as he considered what the lineman was saying into the receiver. Glen Campbell added in a statement to the Dallas Observer that Webb wrote the song about his first love affair with a woman who married someone else.”

As a songwriter, one of the interesting aspects for me is that the song has no chorus, although it does have a repeating phrase “the Wichita lineman is still on the line.”  The music is dotted with minor 7th and major 7th chords, the latter of which give it that plaintive, bitter sweet feel.  Recently, when I went to see James Taylor live in my city, I was over the top when he started to perform his version of Wichita Lineman, and it has, indeed, been recorded by many artists over the years.  In fact, I’m think I might like to do a recording of it myself some day!  

Have a listen to the song in the video below, and here are the lyrics:

I am a lineman for the county 
And I drive the main road 
Searchin’ in the sun for another overload 

I hear you singin’ in the wire, 
I can hear you through the whine 
And the Wichita Lineman is still on the line 

I know I need a small vacation 
But it don’t look like rain 
And if it snows that stretch down south won’t ever stand the strain 

And I need you more than want you, 
And I want you for all time 
And the Wichita Lineman is still on the line 

And I need you more than want you, 
And I want you for all time 
And the Wichita Lineman is still on the line 

It just gets me every time 🙂
~ IJ