Two friends from Liverpool get down to playing guitar, jamming on a Bach tune. They manage the first bit of Johann Sebastian's endearing classical gem ‘Bouree’, but not much else. Years later, one of them uses those opening notes and puts them to song: “Blackbird singing in the dead of night/ Take these broken wings and learn to fly/ You were only waiting for this moment to arrive”.
Over five decades since the Beatles released White Album (1968) that featured the song in LP1 of the 2-LP set, the song is now reprised in Cowboy Carter, Beyonce's genre-defying 8th studio album, snatches of which the world was introduced to a month ago during her last Super Bowl appearance. ‘Bey’ is singing ‘Blackbird’ over the original track and, therefore - hold your breath! - has Sir Paul McCartney playing the guitar. You can hear him tapping his feet too.
Yes. He's just one of the stars of the album's constellation of notables that's got the ‘BeyHive’ in a tizzy. More specifically, what do we make of this mammoth operatic offering of 27 interlocking tracks and interludes that works to about 22 songs? Is it, as everyone is claiming, country music? If so, how much of it is? "This album has been over five years in the making. It was born out of an experience that I had shared years ago where I did not feel welcomed," Beyonce said at the time of its release, likely referencing her appearance at the 2016 Country Music Awards where she performed her song ‘Daddy Lessons’ with the Dixie Chicks that led to a barrage of online racist attacks from the American Right -- she for her open support of Black Lives Matter and the Chicks for famously taking on former US President George Bush during the Iraq war. Her Instagram post is a disclosure. Beyonce reveals that while that experience led her to "take a deeper dive into the history of country... this ain't a country album". It is as she emphasised, "A Beyonce album." Of course. How can we forget what she had told us long ago: “I am not bossy, I’m the boss.”
Coming after 2022's Renaissance, Cowboy Carter is a powerhouse of purpose washed in history that makes the personal vaguely political with the deft use of her storied singing prowess by turn illuminated and framed with fiddles, steel guitars, rap verses, pop melodies and sub-woofer crushing bass. No less than Michelle Obama has been one of its early endorsers. The former US First Lady took to Instagram the other day to share the album artwork captioned with an appeal for all to vote for the upcoming presidential election. “This album reminds us that we ALL have power. There’s power in our history, in our joy, and in our votes… as Queen Bey says at the end of Ya Ya, we need to ‘keep the faith’ and VOTE", Obama posted quoting the album’s 21st track.
Nashville, the home of country, may have reacted with a shrug, but Cowboy Carter has been “yeehaw”-ing to the charts big time. Upon its release, it became Spotify’s most-streamed album in a single day in 2024. And before its release, lead single “Texas Hold ‘Em”, was streamed over 200 million times. The album also marks the most first-day streams for a country album by a female artist in the history of Amazon Music. Not surprising for an artiste such as Beyonce whose steadily mounting net worth, $540 million in 2023, comes primarily from her music. Her husband JayZ is a billionaire, courtesy investments in music, art and liquor.
If Renaissance, all about programmed beats and electronics, was Act 1 of Beyonce’s trilogy, Cowboy Carter is Act II in which she relies primarily on the guitar, piano and drums but mashes these up with loads of samplings, layered and echoing harmonies as the album progresses. It has, so far, received mixed reviews with some critics calling it a blast of memorable songs that are “theatrical, mournful, playful whimsical and carnal”, while others said it stopped short of being a classic. The New York Times calls Cowboy Carter a “bumpier ride than its predecessors”, adding that its juxtaposition of genres suggests Beyonce “wanted to pack all she could into one side trip before moving on elsewhere”. The BBC, in one of its early reviews, called it “an immaculate country-pop record that proves her adaptability and mastery, regardless of genre”.USA Today was gushingly positive, describing the album as being a “little bit country and a whole lot more”, a “deep stylistic smorgasbord”.
Instagram: @beyonce
Cowboy Carter opens with a dramatic song. “There’s a lot of talking going on, while I sing my song,” she sings with gravitas amid the drone of an electronically processed sitar on a bed of keyboards and guitars (producer Jon Batiste), a kind of chin-up declaration: I know my songs are a socio-political talking points. But ‘American Requiem’ soon tells us where its going and what its addressing: “Whole lotta red in that white and blue, ha/ History can’t be erased, oh-oh/ You lookin’ for a new America”. The feeling segues into an almost celestial ‘Blackbird’ featuring a cushion of harmonies by young Black singers seeking a career in country music. ‘Ya Ya’, where historian Beyonce joins avenger Beyonce, throws in a sample of Nancy Sinatra’s ‘These Boots Are Made For Walking’ with other additives coming from the likes of the Beach Boys’ ‘Good Vibrations’.
Beyonce is understood to have taken inspiration from several films, like Urban Cowboy, The Hateful Eight and even Killers of the Flower Moon as, according to a statement from her Parkwood Entertainment, she saw this endeavour as a reimagined western. Often, these films would be run on screen at the time of recording to ensure a certain scenic expanse to the songs or interludes, providing grandeur and character to their renditions. There are many country sounding songs (‘Texas Hold ‘Em’, ‘Desert Eagle’) that rely on the slide guitar. Accordions give bounce to ‘Riverdance’ while ‘Protector’ (featuring daughter Rumi) gets some clean acoustic guitar play. She also ropes in a number of artistes who have worked in both country and pop like Willy Nelson, Miley Cyrus, and Post Malone. Dolly Parton introduces her famous song ‘Jolene’, a country hit based on a real-life brush with infidelity, and the legendary Stevie Wonder plays harmonica. Beyonce’s take, which sees the song turn from a vulnerable plea to a threatening warning, has, however, sparked a sparring match across the media space over whether such an alteration lessens the original tune’s central theme of baring one’s vulnerability. In one song, Bey even takes a dig at the Grammys where she has been consistently overlooked for awards in major categories: “AOTY, I ain’t win, I ain’t stung by them”, she says, but also promises to “come back”.
Instagram: @beyonce
Indeed, country music is known to be wary of musical outsiders even as it tries to stay true to its traditions of being a voice of the rural poor working class. And now that the initial euphoria about Cowboy Carter has ebbed, questions are being asked. Did Beyonce see in it a perfect marketing pitch at a time when country music is growing in popularity? Billboard has reported that country music consumption was up 20.3% year-on-year in the first half of 2023 mostly due to records by Morgan Wallen, Luke Combs, Zach Bryan and Baily Zimmerman.
The 27-track Beyonce showboat that’s Cowboy Carter takes up all of the 79 minutes possible on CD, and needs two LP records to house, notes Jon Pareles in The New York Times. Still, it seems outsized. Not like the magically cohesive Beatles White Album (30 tracks) that features ‘Blackbird’, a song written and composed by McCartney (but also credited to John Lennon) with the segregation of American Black women in mind. The friend with whom McCartney was jamming that day was George Harrison. Would they approve of Beyonce's rendition? They probably would. Critics be damned. Look at her beyond the halo of the rich diva that she is, listen to her sing, outside the embers of the inferno her voice generates, both in exuberance and in genteel undertones. What do you hear?
Therein lies your answer.
PS: And Sir Paul says he loves Bey’s version of Blackbird! “I so happy with @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. I would urge anyone who has not heard it yet to check it out.”
