A Revolutionary Song
Paul McCartney did most of the writing and was inspired by the civil rights struggle for African Americans. He wrote it based on what he read about race riots in the US.
He was in his kitchen in Scotland, not long after an incident happened in Little Rock, the federal courts forced the racial desegregation of the Arkansas capital’s school system.
“I was sitting around with my acoustic guitar and I’d heard about the civil rights troubles that were happening in the ’60s in Alabama, Mississippi, Little Rock in particular. I just thought it would be really good if I could write something that if it ever reached any of the people going through those problems, it might give them a little bit of hope. So, I wrote ‘Blackbird.'”
When he wrote the song he had no ornithological intentions but England took it as a message where “bird” is a term meaning “girl,” and the message was for a black girl telling her that it’s her time to fly:
All your life You were only waiting for this moment to arise