365 Day Song Challenge

Day 213 - A song you like that starts with the letter “E”

Ebony and Ivory - Paul McCartney ft. Stevie Wonder


This is a song about racial harmony, using piano keys as a metaphor. The black keys on a piano are ebony, and the white ones are ivory - the song asks why we all can’t lie together in perfect harmony like the keys.
McCartney wrote this song with the intention of singing it with Wonder, who he admired. It appeared on McCartney’s 1982 album Tug Of War.
Beatles producer George Martin produced this track and the rest of the Tug Of War album.
This was a huge hit in the US, staying at #1 for 7 weeks. Listeners quickly tired of the song, however, and it got very little radio play after it dropped off the charts. In the following years, the song was often mocked as superficial and trite, and a stark contrast to the many McCartney and Wonder songs that have stood the test of time. In 2004, Blender magazine ranked this #10 on their list of the worst songs of all time.
McCartney originally conceived the idea for this song after watching English comedian Spike Milligan playing on a TV show a segregated piano, on which the white and black keys were kept apart, in order to demonstrate how one couldn’t work without the other. He subsequently penned the song after a marital tiff with Linda. McCartney said in to Mojo magazine March 2009: “It was like, ‘Why can’t we get it together- our piano can.’” (songfacts.com)


Lyrics:

Ebony And Ivory Live Together In Perfect Harmony

Side By Side On My Piano Keyboard, Oh Lord, Why Don’t We?

We All Know That People Are The Same Where Ever We Go

There Is Good And Bad In Ev’ryone,

We Learn To Live, We Learn To Give

Each Other What We Need To Survive Together Alive.

Ebony And Ivory Live Together In Perfect Harmony

Side By Side On My Piano Keyboard, Oh Lord Why Don’t We?

Ebony, Ivory Living In Perfect Harmony

Ebony, Ivory, Ooh

We All Know That People Are The Same Where Ever We Go

There Is Good And Bad In Ev’ryone,

We Learn To Live, We Learn To Give

Each Other What We Need To Survive Together Alive.

Ebony And Ivory Live Together In Perfect Harmony

Side By Side On My Piano Keyboard, Oh Lord Why Don’t We?

Ebony, Ivory Living In Perfect Harmony (Repeat And Fade)

1 Notes/ Hide

  1. helter-my-skelter reblogged this from letty23
  2. letty23 posted this

Recent comments

Blog comments powered by Disqus