Article text: BEYONCÉ HAS SO many audacious culture-clash triumphs all over Cowboy Carter. But one of the most stunning moments is also one of the simplest: her version of the Beatles classic “Blackbird.” Paul McCartney wrote the song in the summer of 1968, inspired by the American civil rights movement. All that history is right there in Beyoncé’s version. She keeps the folkie Paul guitar, complete with the squeaks, but adds her heavenly gospel-soul harmonies. What she does with the word “arise” is incredible in itself.
It’s a stroke of Beyoncé’s revisionary genius that brings the story of “Blackbird” full circle. She claims the song as if Paul McCartney wrote it for her. Because, in so many ways, he did.
Paul tells the story of writing it in his 2021 book The Lyrics. “At the time in 1968 when I was writing ‘Blackbird,’” he recalls, “I was very conscious of the terrible racial tensions in the U.S. The year before, 1967, had been a particularly bad year, but 1968 was even worse. The song was written only a few weeks after the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. That imagery of the broken wings and the sunken eyes and the general longing for freedom is very much of its moment.”
Paul wrote this song as a dialogue with Black America; Bey’s “Blackbird” is part of that call-and-response, proof that the song always meant exactly what McCartney hoped it would mean. It’s one of the most profound and powerful Beatles covers ever, right up there with Aretha Franklin’s “The Long and Winding Road.”
“I had in mind a Black woman, rather than a bird,” Paul says of the song in the 1997 book Many Years From Now, by Barry Miles. “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.’”
Obviously, I can't ignore the funny pics of AFO either
AFO getting insulted for the first time on the web be like:
He looks like his fingers would be flying across a keyboard if he were on the internet.
AFO went and made himself into a troll face, man.
"MOMMY LOOK AT WHAT I FOUND!"
YEAH BOY, YOU LOOK REAL WEIRD BUT YEAH! RAISE YOUR TROPHY
MA! AN ALLIGATOR GOT INTO THE TRAILER AGAIN!
AFO's that arm being pummeled into the ground.
[All Might Doesn't Know How to Fucking Hold Back Against Kids: Case 47]
Feat. Accidentally twink-ifying AFO to the point he's become a twig
NEWS: AFO fails again, "Desperately trying to play it cool", All Might says, for at least the 3rd time in this fight
AFO tried being so cool with the "Shigaraki—my other self" and failed instantly. Livestreamed all over the world. Ugggghhh. The embarrassmenttt
Proceeds to split his face to smile, saying "I'll have to do the legwork myself".
As if to them, he didn't just go "Watch me do this. Come now, my other self. ........ I'll have to do it myself."
"Look how cool I am" *fails* "I CAN DO IT PROPERLY I MEAN IT"
He flip-flopped so hard here that if it were me, I'd give All Might the finishing blow to end me of my embarrassment. The world saw it. My life is over
AFO's ego is just so big and he's trying so hard to play it cool and keep his pride in his fight.
As if he hasn't been running around half-naked in a cape this whole time
like loudmouth redneck zack sitting shirtless in a rickety wooden rocking chair on the porch kicking back a shitty beer and cheering cloud on while he does donuts on a dirt bike. it's what they deserve
a selection of my favorite iwtv video thumbnails :) i just pick screenshots that seem to fit the vibe of the video and randomly fuck around in photoshop in the 15 minutes between rendering the video and uploading it so. they're not so bad for that!