--- title: The Story Behind Beyonce's Blackbird Cover on Cowboy Carter description: The deep meaning behind Beyonce's cover of the Beatles' 'Blackbird' on her new album, 'Cowboy Carter.' canonical: https://time.com/6961736/blackbird-beyonce-cover-meaning/ author: Cady Lang article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2024-03-29T13:04:56.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-01-19T10:17:28.000Z article:section: Entertainment og:title: The Meaning Behind Beyonce's Blackbird Cover on 'Cowboy Carter' og:description: There's a meaningful story behind Beyonce's cover of the Beatles' 'Blackbird' on her new album, 'Cowboy Carter.' og:url: https://time.com/6961736/blackbird-beyonce-cover-meaning/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt16e8be308a5f8b08/698a553fdb2987b87926b80e/beyonce-paul-mccartney-cowboy-carter.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: beyonce-paul-mccartney-cowboy-carter og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: The Meaning Behind Beyonce's Blackbird Cover on 'Cowboy Carter' twitter:description: There's a meaningful story behind Beyonce's cover of the Beatles' 'Blackbird' on her new album, 'Cowboy Carter.' twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt16e8be308a5f8b08/698a553fdb2987b87926b80e/beyonce-paul-mccartney-cowboy-carter.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # The Meaning Behind Beyonce's 'Blackbird' Cover on Cowboy Carter > Sponsored content. 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Terms and conditions apply. * Savings buckets are a feature of Ally Bank's Savings Account. * No ATM fees from Ally Bank at Allpoint and Moneypass ATMs plus we reimburse for fees charged by other ATM owners nationwide up to $10 per statement cycle. * Early direct deposit offers eligible direct deposits up to two days sooner. * Spending buckets are a feature of Ally Bank's Spending Account. ## Video: Fans React to Beyonce's New Album 'Cowboy Carter' [Watch (HLS stream): Fans React to Beyonce's New Album 'Cowboy Carter'](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/xf6YtRGw.m3u8) (3:00)  _Published 2024-03-29. Beyoncé fans shared their reaction videos with TIME following the release of her new album 'Cowboy Carter.'_  by [Cady Lang](https://time.com/author/cady-lang/)  ## Cady Lang Updated: Jan 19, 2026 10:17 AM UTCPublished: Mar 29, 2024 1:04 PM UTC  Getty Images (2)  by [Cady Lang](https://time.com/author/cady-lang/)  ## Cady Lang Updated: Jan 19, 2026 10:17 AM UTCPublished: Mar 29, 2024 1:04 PM UTC Beyoncé's eighth studio album [_Cowboy Carter_,](https://time.com/6900295/beyonce-album-cowboy-carter/) the second act of her three-part project, released at midnight on Friday. One of the most striking songs of its 27 tracks is a soulful cover of the Beatles' "Blackbird," which features a quartet of Black country singers: Tanner Adell, Tiera Kennedy, Brittney Spencer and Reyna Roberts. The inclusion of "Blackbird" (styled as "Blackbiird" on _Cowboy Carter_, in keeping with the act ii theme) may come as a surprise to some; for one, in recent years, Beyoncé has rarely done covers of other artists' songs. For another, though Beyoncé has been clear that her new album ["ain't a country album, this is a Beyoncé album," ](https://time.com/6694806/beyonce-country-music/)many of the songs on the album are firmly in the country space, making her inclusion of the decidedly folk rock classic "Blackbird" especially significant. **Read more:** [_Everything We Know About Beyoncé’s New Album_ Cowboy Carter](https://time.com/6900295/beyonce-album-cowboy-carter/) "Blackbird," which was written by Paul McCartney and John Lennon and included on their 1968 self-titled album, is a song about hope and survival, with lyrics that encourage the titular bird to "take these broken wings and learn to fly." However, throughout the years, McCartney has been vocal about the song being inspired by the American civil rights movement and specifically [the Little Rock Nine](https://time.com/4948704/little-rock-nine-anniversary/), the trailblazing nine Black students in 1957 who faced immense discrimination after they enrolled in a formerly all-white high school following the landmark _Brown vs. Board of Education_ ruling.  Elizabeth Eckford ignores the screams and stares of fellow students on her first day of school, Sept. 6, 1957\. Eckford was one of nine African American students whose integration into Little Rock's Central High School was ordered by a Federal Court following legal action by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). Bettmann Archive/Getty Images In a 2019 interview with [_GQ_](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u97%5FinloBmY), McCartney detailed how this struggle for racial justice inspired him and Lennon across the pond. "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, and Little Rock in particular. So that was in my mind and I just thought, 'It'd be really good if I could write something that if it ever reached any of the people going through those problems, it might kind of give them a little bit of hope,' so I wrote 'Blackbird.' **Read more:** [_‘I Had a Right to Be at Central’: Remembering Little Rock’s Integration Battle_](https://time.com/4948704/little-rock-nine-anniversary/) He also shared that he wrote the song specifically with Black women in the civil rights movement in mind, which makes Beyoncé's decision to cover it with all Black female country artists especially significant. "In England, a bird is a girl, so I was thinking of a Black girl going through this—you know, now's your time to arise, set yourself free, and take these broken wings. One of the nice things about music is that you know a lot of people listening to you are going to take seriously what you're saying in the song. So I'm very proud of the fact that the Beatles output is always really pretty positive," he said. In 2016, nearly 60 years after "Blackbird" made its debut, McCartney met two members of the Little Rock Nine, Thelma Mothershed Wair and Elizabeth Eckford, after performing a concert in North Little Rock, AR. "It's a really important place for us because this is, to me, where civil rights started," McCartney said [during the concert](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AIx9NPVDSOI&embeds%5Freferring%5Feuri=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.arkansasonline.com%2F&source%5Fve%5Fpath=MjM4NTE&feature=emb%5Ftitle). "We would see what was going on and sympathize with the people going through those struggles, and it made me want to write a song that if it ever got back to the people going through those struggles, it might just help them a little." > [](https://twitter.com/PaulMcCartney/status/726634512864579584) The song has been covered extensively over the years, by everyone from the Foo Fighters’ Dave Grohl to Sarah McLachlan. Now, Beyoncé's version featuring Adell, Kennedy, Spencer, and Roberts serves as a reminder of the Black women at the forefront of the racial justice movement. It also draws a parallel between the ways in which Black artists and particularly Black women artists still have to fight for space in the industry, especially in the country genre, which has historically been [less than welcoming to non-white and women artists](https://www.npr.org/2023/08/01/1191405789/how-racism-became-a-marketing-tool-for-country-music). Following the release of _Cowboy Carter,_ McCartney took to Instagram to share his feelings about Beyoncé’s cover of “Blackbird.” “I am so happy with [@beyonce](https://www.instagram.com/beyonce/)’s version of my song ‘Blackbird’. I think she does a magnificent version of it and it reinforces the civil rights message that inspired me to write the song in the first place,” he wrote in the post. “I think Beyoncé has done a fab version and would urge anyone who has not heard it yet to check it out. You are going to love it!” McCartney also shared that he spoke personally to Beyoncé on FaceTime about the song, a call where she thanked him for writing the song and allowing her to cover it, to which he responded that the “pleasure was all mine.” He also emphasized that he felt that Beyoncé’s cover also centered the same message of racial justice that inspired him to originally write the song. “When I saw the footage on the television in the early 60s of the black girls being turned away from school, I found it shocking and I can’t believe that still in these days there are places where this kind of thing is happening right now,” he wrote. “Anything my song and Beyoncé’s fabulous version can do to ease racial tension would be a great thing and makes me very proud.” ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/6961736/blackbird-beyonce-cover-meaning/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/6961736/blackbird-beyonce-cover-meaning/"},"headline":"The Meaning Behind Beyonce's 'Blackbird' Cover on Cowboy Carter","datePublished":"2024-03-29T13:04:56.000Z","dateModified":"2026-01-19T10:17:28.000Z","description":"There's a meaningful story behind Beyonce's cover of the Beatles' 'Blackbird' on her new album, 'Cowboy Carter.'","url":"https://time.com/6961736/blackbird-beyonce-cover-meaning/","keywords":["Music","Brief","culturepod"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt16e8be308a5f8b08/698a553fdb2987b87926b80e/beyonce-paul-mccartney-cowboy-carter.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Cady Lang","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/cady-lang/"}],"articleSection":"Entertainment","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt16e8be308a5f8b08/698a553fdb2987b87926b80e/beyonce-paul-mccartney-cowboy-carter.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"beyonce-paul-mccartney-cowboy-carter","caption":"","creditText":"Getty Images (2)","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/entertainment/","name":"Entertainment"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/music/","name":"Music"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/6961736/blackbird-beyonce-cover-meaning/","name":"The Meaning Behind Beyonce's 'Blackbird' Cover on Cowboy Carter"}}]},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"VideoObject","name":"Fans React to Beyonce's New Album 'Cowboy Carter'","description":"Beyoncé fans shared their reaction videos with TIME following the release of her new album 'Cowboy Carter.'","thumbnailUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/xf6YtRGw/poster.jpg?width=720","uploadDate":"2024-03-29T19:17:13.000Z","contentUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/xf6YtRGw.m3u8","embedUrl":"https://time.com/6961736/blackbird-beyonce-cover-meaning/","duration":"PT3M","potentialAction":{"@type":"SeekToAction","target":"https://time.com/6961736/blackbird-beyonce-cover-meaning/?jw_start={seek_to_second_number}","startOffset-input":"required name=seek_to_second_number"}}] ```