Songs I Like - Blackbird

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

Songs I Like - Set The Prairie On Fire

I discovered Shawn Colvin in the early 90's when I myself was out performing quite a bit.  I remember listening to her CD "Fat City" at first because a friend of mine thought we had similar voices, and I played it in my car as I was travelling around.  The fact that my friend thought our voices were alike was a compliment, of course, because Shawn is a far better vocalist than I'll ever be.  But beyond that, I fell in love with her songs long before "Sunny Came Home" was a hit.

I was in my 40's then, and you know what they say about ladies in the 40's.  Okay, if you don't, then look it up :-)  And when I first really listened to "Set The Prairie On Fire", it pretty much blew me away.  It was not the first or second listen, I'm sure, but as I heard it again and again, the lyrics found their way into my psyche and it became like a slow, seductive reveal.

Shawn is a great guitar player and I love her percussive flatpicking, and this song and its accompanying recording really demonstrates her playing ability.  The chords jump from what I think is an Am to G, back and forth in the verses, but the way she plays them keeps the repeated chord progression hard driving and never boring!  It's a slow song, with a wailing organ snaking its way all throughout, giving it a lonely, longing feeling which compliments the lyrics perfectly.  It feels like a prairie, it feels wide open and wanting.

Full full moon and that same sad nature
I wanna cover every inch of you
Like ink on paper
Like the blind parade of souls
Consumed by religion
I can't wait 'til I get you 
In that defenseless position

CHORUS:
When we set the prairie on fire
Oh we go down to the water
Naked and slow
You and me
And the heart of desire
We set the prairie on fire
How hard will the wind blow
How far will it go

When the feeling burns down
To one solitary colour
The velocity of longing
Melting into each other
It's a song our fingers play
All at once and together
You can bet we never learned it
But we've known it forever

Oh I dreamed that we were flying
Carried up from the ashes
Black silhouettes of velvet
Against the crimson of passion
We can almost hear the echoes
From the smouldering meadow
It's the rapture of the angels
And the rage of the devil

[REPEAT CHORUS]

BRIDGE:

In the cool dusk of horses
Through the rusted wires of sleep
With our arms around midnight
We're headed for release
We go riding in the wind
We go riding in the dark
Go riding, riding

[REPEAT CHORUS]

Read along with the lyrics as you listen to one of my favourite songs by Shawn Colvin available in the video below.
Sigh...

~ IJ

Open Tunings

The "open tuning" queen herself, Joni Mitchell

I recently began to coach a local songwriter on a weekly basis, and he has inadvertently re-introduced me to open tunings on the guitar. He writes some interesting songs, and part of what makes them interesting is his penchant for all kinds of alternate tunings that cause lots of broken strings, but plenty of fascinating compositions! Obviously, this post will apply more to those of you who write on guitar :-).

If you've never heard of open or alternate tunings, I'll give you a bit of a run down first. Most of you know that when a guitar is in "standard" tuning, the notes from the 6th string down are E, A, D, G, B and E. The first tuning I will explain is "alternate standard", which, in most cases, means tuning each string down 1/2 a step or more. The first time I came across this was with the band Nirvana, although I'm sure there were those who did it earlier than they did. Nirvana's guitars were almost always tuned down 1/2 step, making their songs sound deeper. They were a pain to figure out unless you had your guitar in this alternate standard tuning. This has become a common tuning for a number of bands, mostly in the rock, metal or alternative genre.

Open tunings are a retuning of a guitar to a chord. One of the more common open tunings is to a D chord, where the strings are tuned as followed: 6th becomes D, 5th stays as A, 4th stays as D, 3rd is tuned down to F#, 2nd string is tuned down to A and the first string is tuned down to D. Listing them together, they are D,A,D,F#,A,D. If you look up a D chord, these are those notes contained within that chord.