Beyoncé Thanks Paul McCartney for ‘Blackbird’: ‘Every Time I Sing It I Feel So Honored’

Beyoncé is a Beatles fan, through and through.

The “Texas Hold Em” singer posted a tribute on Instagram to Paul McCartney on Monday, June 17, thanking him for the 1968 Beatles song “Blackbird,” which has a featured spot as a cover on her Cowboy Carter album.

“Thank you, Sir Paul McCartney, for writing one of the best songs ever made. Every time I sing it I feel so honored. And it is a full circle moment to wear your beautiful daughter’s design,” Beyoncé, 43, wrote of fashion designer Stella McCartney’s work.

She also thanked the fans who attended her London shows as part of her Cowboy Carter Tour at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium. “Thank you, London, for creating unforgettable memories for me and my family. Holla at ‘ya when I come on tour again!”

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The song, which is stylized as “Blackbiird,” appears on Beyoncé’s 2024 album and features Black country artists Tanner Adell, Brittney Spencer, Reyna Roberts and Tiera Kennedy.

The “Golden Slumbers” singer, 82, praised the cover of his song after its release. “I am so happy with @beyonce’s version of my song ‘Blackbird,” McCartney posted on Instagram in April 2024.

“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. 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!”

Added McCartney: “I spoke to her on FaceTime and she thanked me for writing it and letting her do it. I told her the pleasure was all mine and I thought she had done a killer version of the song.”

McCartney also spoke about the inspiration for the song from the Little Rock Nine in Arkansas, Black students who integrated into an all-white high school in 1957 after the ruling of Brown vs. Board of Education three years prior. They faced discrimination for attending the school, and McCartney’s song offers a message of hope to overcome adversity.

“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.”

“Anything my song and Beyoncé’s fabulous version can do to ease racial tension would be a great thing and makes me very proud,” the rock legend concluded.

He also told GQ about writing the song in 2018, while clarifying that  “in England, ‘bird’ is a ‘girl’ ” so “Blackbird” he used as a metaphor for “Black girl.”

“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,” he said at the time.

“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.’ ”

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Up next for Beyoncé’s Cowboy Carter tour are three shows in Paris before she returns to the U.S. From there, she will make stops in Houston, Washington, D.C., Atlanta and Las Vegas.

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