GuitarChords.netBlackbird grew from a Bach guitar try
Paul McCartney and George Harrison were teenagers when they tried to learn a Bach lute piece. In Barry Miles's book Many Years From Now, McCartney says the piece was Bach's Bourrée in E minor. He liked the way the melody and the bass moved together. On the Parkinson show in 2005 he said the piece was classical, but they made it semi-classical because they did not know the whole thing. Paul made up the next bars, and that made-up bit was the part he liked and the start of Blackbird.
Years later he shifted that idea into G major. The new line became Blackbird on the Beatles' 1968 White Album. Guitar Player, drawing on that same memoir and the Parkinson talk, notes that the youthful Bach try is what he adapted into the song's opening guitar figure.
McCartney has also said where the words came from. In a 2002 interview with KCRW's Chris Douridas he recalled sitting in Scotland with a guitar and thinking about the civil rights struggle in the southern United States. He used a blackbird as a symbol, not a bird story alone. He has tied that hope to news from Little Rock and related fights for equal rights. A bird call he heard while the Beatles were in Rishikesh, India, in early 1968 also stuck with him, he has said in later talks.
He cut the album take alone on June 11, 1968, at EMI Studios in London. Mark Lewisohn's session history, matching Discogs White Album credits, lists McCartney on acoustic guitar and voice, with a blackbird tape and the sound of his tapping foot keeping time. No other Beatle plays on the track. The guitar was a Martin D-28, the same family of flattop he favored for quiet album songs.
The home key is G major. Open-shape maps of the song walk a verse through G, A minor 7 (Am7), a G shape with B in the bass, and C major. A dominant 7 (A7) shows up as a bright turn. Guitar World's look at McCartney's two-finger style shows how little fretting hand he needs: thumb and one finger on the pick hand, with an open G string ringing like a soft drone between the steps.
You do not need Bach first. Put a G shape under your hand, keep that open G string singing, and walk toward Am7 and C until the bass steps feel calm. Slow is fine. The song rewards a light touch more than speed.
Want a quiet White Album corner under your fingers? Keep the open G ringing, thumb the low notes, and settle on G major. That grip is the soft home of the whole piece.