Speaker 1: Pushkin.
Speaker 2: Hi everyone, it's Paul muldoon. Before we get to this episode,
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Speaker 1: Look, there's a beautiful bird.
Speaker 3: I loved bird watching when I was a kid.
Speaker 1: How can you tell one bird from another?
Speaker 4: So I like to be able to get out of
Speaker 4: the normal stream of life. We were about a mile
Speaker 4: away from quite deep countryside, so I used to just
Speaker 4: go on my own, just being away from the normal stuff, school, family, life.
Speaker 1: Appearance is one way to identify birds. How does it look?
Speaker 4: I had a little bird book, the Observers Book of Birds.
Speaker 1: In yards or in pipes, wherever people are, you are
Speaker 1: likely to find another small bird with a beautiful song.
Speaker 4: The wren was a great favorite because you wouldn't see
Speaker 4: that often. Just suddenly said, flit from one of the push.
Speaker 1: To This small brownish bird is a wren.
Speaker 3: And singing as it goes.
Speaker 4: We can learn to know Wren's by their sound, so
Speaker 4: I loved birds. Because of that, I started being able
Speaker 4: to recognize the birds.
Speaker 2: I'm Paul muldoon and I've been fortunate to spend time
Speaker 2: with one of the greatest songwriters of the era.
Speaker 3: And will you look at me? I'm going too. I'm
Speaker 3: actually a performer.
Speaker 2: That is, Sir Paul McCartney. We worked together on a
Speaker 2: book looking at the lyrics of more than one hundred
Speaker 2: and fifty of his songs, and we recorded many hours
Speaker 2: of our conversations.
Speaker 3: Oh, actually I'm a songwriter. My god, Well that crypta homie.
Speaker 2: This is McCartney, A life in lyrics, a masterclass, a memoir,
Speaker 2: and an improvised journey with one of the most iconic
Speaker 2: figures in popular music. In this episode, Jenny Wren.
Speaker 5: The Girls, Jenny Wren to King she could See's age way.
Speaker 2: Paul McCartney has been a nature lover and birdwatcher since childhood.
Speaker 2: His song catalog is teeming with feathered friends. There's single
Speaker 2: Pigeon from nineteen seventy three.
Speaker 6: Same pigeon through the railing dig throw you out.
Speaker 2: There's Bluebird from the same year.
Speaker 6: La Night Window, willis no Algoline.
Speaker 3: Your dog.
Speaker 7: And you know what love this.
Speaker 6: I'm a bluebird.
Speaker 2: And there are a couple from the Beatles era.
Speaker 3: I am a rabbit pornithologist. I like my birds. Say.
Speaker 2: When Paul McCartney went off bird watching as a kid,
Speaker 2: he was trying to escape the daily grind of school, errands,
Speaker 2: work and other people. Even now when he's looking for
Speaker 2: a location to buckle down and write songs, here's the
Speaker 2: same impulse.
Speaker 4: When you're writing something as embarrassing, as potentially embarrassing as
Speaker 4: a love song, it's best to hide away in the
Speaker 4: furthest corner cupboard you can find so that no one
Speaker 4: can hear you through this process. So I will often
Speaker 4: literally try and get away so that nobody can hear
Speaker 4: me do this, because this is like very private.
Speaker 3: It's got to just be me and this guitar.
Speaker 4: Then I can touch this sort of inner place where
Speaker 4: I am the troubado wandering around in the forest thinking
Speaker 4: of love, thinking of the beauty of it, the mystery
Speaker 4: of it, the strength of it.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 4: Well, I say it's potentially embarrassing because you know, someone
Speaker 4: could walk in and go, oh god, you know, and
Speaker 4: that would be the worst thing. So I'll go very
Speaker 4: hidden aways. But once I get on that trail, I
Speaker 4: really like it.
Speaker 2: Your impulse to get into that cupboard.
Speaker 3: Yeah, to get into that little place to work.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a kind of nesting impulse, I think.
Speaker 6: Is it partly.
Speaker 4: Yeah, maybe, I think it's mainly privacy. I think it's
Speaker 4: mainly to not be overheard.
Speaker 2: For privacy, one can head either to the tiniest cupboard
Speaker 2: or to the great outdoors, as McCartney did when he
Speaker 2: wrote Jenny Wren.
Speaker 4: I was in Angeles and there's a canyon that I
Speaker 4: particularly like to go walking in and you have to
Speaker 4: drive there, so I'd gone.
Speaker 3: On my own.
Speaker 4: I just found a little quiet parking space along the
Speaker 4: side of the road and it was very rural area.
Speaker 4: I'd taken my guitar unusually, so I meant to go
Speaker 4: and write a song again. This was my outdoors cupboard.
Speaker 8: Like so many girls, Jenny Wren Good scene took some away,
Speaker 8: Like so many girls Jenny Wren Good scene Booken Up.
Speaker 7: Took so away.
Speaker 4: I remember just sitting there thinking, yeah, I just said
Speaker 4: the idea of the story was she could sing.
Speaker 3: Well, something had happened. We don't know what.
Speaker 2: The protagonist of the song, Jenny Wren is halfway between
Speaker 2: bird and human, singing and taking wing like the other girls.
Speaker 5: Like the the girls, Jenny Wren took wing.
Speaker 7: She could see, and it's high way.
Speaker 2: In fact, McCartney may have derived the name from a
Speaker 2: character in Charles Dickens's eighteen sixty five novel Our Mutual Friend.
Speaker 7: Here.
Speaker 2: Jenny Wren is a dressmaker for dolls. She's a teenage
Speaker 2: girl who was born with a crooked spine and underdeveloped legs.
Speaker 9: Something sparkled down among the fair hair resting on the
Speaker 9: dark hair, and if it were not a star, which
Speaker 9: it couldn't be, it was an eye.
Speaker 2: Despite her struggles, Jenny Wren has a sunny outlook and
Speaker 2: keen powers of observation.
Speaker 9: And if it were an eye, it was Jenny Wren's eye,
Speaker 9: bright and watchful as the birds whose name she had taken.
Speaker 2: I mean, it's the name is has currency beyond that.
Speaker 2: Jenny Wren was a term we used, perhaps you used
Speaker 2: when you were not in the fields outside the estate,
Speaker 2: just about the regular the little wren.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, exactly, which is often think it's probably my
Speaker 4: favorite bird.
Speaker 2: Mm hmm.
Speaker 4: There's very little, very private, very sweet little thing. So
Speaker 4: in other words, because she doesn't sing, but she can
Speaker 4: see the world in its foolish way. Is how we
Speaker 4: spend our days cassiing love society. You can see.
Speaker 3: The reality of the situation.
Speaker 7: Oh we span days, guys.
Speaker 3: You can see all these sad things happening.
Speaker 7: Side of life broke.
Speaker 2: That broken world is not unreminiscent of the broken wings
Speaker 2: of that other singer.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's right. M hmm.
Speaker 7: Blackbirds singing in the dead of life.
Speaker 6: Take these broken wings and learn to fly. All your
Speaker 6: life you were on waiting for this moment to arise.
Speaker 3: Which I think again.
Speaker 2: Songs being a conversation with songs from the tradition but
Speaker 2: also within your own work. They're talking to each other.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and that's a good thing. Yeah.
Speaker 4: I think you know, when you're sitting down with an
Speaker 4: acoustic guitar, there's a few ways you can go.
Speaker 3: And with Blackbird, it's a little part.
Speaker 4: It's a guitar part that you sing against rather than
Speaker 4: strumming chords, and so I think this has the same
Speaker 4: kind of thing.
Speaker 3: This is a little part rather than just chords.
Speaker 4: So I mean, I think I was probably intentionally writing
Speaker 4: another Blackbird.
Speaker 10: Ba Bird Bye, black Bird into the line of a
Speaker 10: dark black man.
Speaker 2: If the guitar part of Jenny Wren echoes McCartney's Blackbird,
Speaker 2: then it carries within it another echo, one from the
Speaker 2: classical genre Bachs Burret in E minor.
Speaker 4: A little guitar part which is so much a part
Speaker 4: of it was something that George and I. It was
Speaker 4: a party piece of us when we were kids, and
Speaker 4: it's it's box, it's.
Speaker 1: Do do do do Do Do Do Do Do Do
Speaker 1: Do Do Do Do Do Do Do do do do.
Speaker 7: Do do do do.
Speaker 4: We knew the tune, liked the tune, but particularly liked
Speaker 4: the counterpart, because well, do do do do do do
Speaker 4: do do do do do do do there's a baseline
Speaker 4: m So with this bark piece, George and I learned
Speaker 4: do do do do do do?
Speaker 7: Do you do?
Speaker 3: Do do do it as the melody, and then do
Speaker 3: you do do you do?
Speaker 7: Do you do? Do do?
Speaker 4: And then we kind of ran out. We didn't know
Speaker 4: how it went, so we made up the rest of
Speaker 4: the door. So so we have our own little version
Speaker 4: of this back too, which become a party piece.
Speaker 3: And I know that I've been.
Speaker 4: Fascinated with it its structure, do you do do do
Speaker 4: do do do you do do do do that little bit,
Speaker 4: do do do, do.
Speaker 3: That little thing.
Speaker 4: I just switched it around a bit, made it my own,
Speaker 4: but I knew where I was coming from. How he
Speaker 4: with that became the blackbird singing in the dead of night.
Speaker 6: Blackbird singing in the dead up night, Take these broken
Speaker 6: wings and learn to fly.
Speaker 7: All your life.
Speaker 4: So I had that, and then I just I don't
Speaker 4: know where, really, I think it was in Scotland, the
Speaker 4: time or the break I got this idea of a
Speaker 4: blackbird singing the dead of night. Just so it's just
Speaker 4: an image of a silhouette of a blackbird silhouetted in
Speaker 4: the dead of night in a sort of forest somewhere
Speaker 4: as being this lonely sort of image.
Speaker 7: Black bird light into the light of a dull black light.
Speaker 2: The loneliness of the blackbird is reflected in the simple
Speaker 2: instrumentation of that famous song, no orchestration, just McCartney and
Speaker 2: his guitar and the terps of the bird. He's singing about,
Speaker 2: blackbird singing in the dead Um.
Speaker 6: Take these broken wings and learn to fly on your line.
Speaker 4: And I there's such an all encompassing record company of
Speaker 4: the old variety that they had a Sound Library. So
Speaker 4: if I wanted the sound of blackbirds singing, I could
Speaker 4: just sort of look it up on the largicle most birds, blackbird, and.
Speaker 3: You would get you know, you can look it up
Speaker 3: and get someone will go and get it for you
Speaker 3: were only.
Speaker 6: Waiting for this moment do a rise. You were only
Speaker 6: waiting for this moment to a ride. You were only
Speaker 6: waiting for this moment doing right.
Speaker 2: The song may have started out as a simple image
Speaker 2: of nature, the silhouette of a lonely bird crying out
Speaker 2: into the dark, but when McCartney wrote the song in
Speaker 2: the spring of nineteen sixty eight, he was also speaking
Speaker 2: to the turbulence of the American civil rights movement, including
Speaker 2: the enforced desegregation of schools.
Speaker 4: Then it started to be about arising. Yeah, you know,
Speaker 4: Blacky said to take these broken wings. So in others
Speaker 4: I was writing about the civil rights disturbances in the
Speaker 4: Little Rock, particularly that we've been hearing about segregation and
Speaker 4: stuff that shocked us so much. Colored children to attend
Speaker 4: that all my schools have been upheld by the United States,
Speaker 4: have been caught. City and state police had cordoned off
Speaker 4: the school and many table makers were taken her a custody.
Speaker 4: You know your broken wings, sunken eyes, seeing broken wings flying,
Speaker 4: you know this is your moment to arise and be free.
Speaker 4: And yeah, then I realized I was sending it in
Speaker 4: that direction. Who now wasn't just a ornithological piece. It
Speaker 4: was now to do with sort of politics and to
Speaker 4: do with freedom.
Speaker 7: Really, she saw poverty breaking up warriors to their song
Speaker 7: Away the Blackbird.
Speaker 2: McCartney writes about singing and protest in Jenny Wren. However,
Speaker 2: the bird's protest comes in the form of silence. Instead
Speaker 2: of selecting a chirping bird to accompany this song, McCartney
Speaker 2: included a du duc An Armenian woodwind instrument with a
Speaker 2: haunting sound.
Speaker 4: In the minute I'm talking about Jenny Wren, I'm seeing
Speaker 4: the bird, and then I'm seeing a person. And then
Speaker 4: in this story, for no apparent reason, she just doesn't
Speaker 4: sing anymore. But she's she could sing, she's a great singer,
Speaker 4: and she doesn't sing anymore. And it turns out that
Speaker 4: it's because of all our foolish ways, like a protest, right,
Speaker 4: And so then it just becomes a bit reflective about
Speaker 4: our society, how we screw things up and everything, and
Speaker 4: so now we sympathize with the person who protests. Oh,
Speaker 4: she's even lost her voice over this. Like the girls.
Speaker 7: Jenny Wren too green, she could sing.
Speaker 5: AND's a ways, what did Jenny Wren see?
Speaker 3: You saw who we are? Yeah? What did she see?
Speaker 1: Who are?
Speaker 4: She saw our foolish ways and the way we cast
Speaker 4: all aside, the way we lose sight of life. So
Speaker 4: they we are we have poverty, breaks up homes, and
Speaker 4: we wounded warriors.
Speaker 7: To their song away.
Speaker 3: She saw sure the screw up that society.
Speaker 4: Is. And you know, like everyone, we're just looking for
Speaker 4: that better way. So it's kind of nice that someone
Speaker 4: spotted that the change needs to happen. I think, you
Speaker 4: know it's it's a good old world, really, and I do.
Speaker 4: I think we screw it up, you know, that's it's
Speaker 4: it's highly obvious with the ocean filled with plastic, it
Speaker 4: didn't get there by itself, and so you could say
Speaker 4: we screwed that up.
Speaker 2: In typical McCartney fashion, he ends the song on a
Speaker 2: note of hope rather than despair. By taking the protests
Speaker 2: of Jenny Wren as a warning sign, he builds a
Speaker 2: world in which she may sing again, but.
Speaker 3: The day will come there you go. It's going to
Speaker 3: be a great day. Jenny Wrene will sing, but it
Speaker 3: will come.
Speaker 7: Jenny will sing. When they spoken world, when's it swoolish?
Speaker 7: Way we spell cad cos Jey?
Speaker 2: Can you hear a little bird singing at the moment?
Speaker 3: That's a rain? Is it really?
Speaker 1: Yes?
Speaker 7: It is?
Speaker 1: It's a house rain.
Speaker 10: Wow.
Speaker 2: The Indian name for it, I happen to know is
Speaker 2: a little bird with a big voice.
Speaker 1: And that's it.
Speaker 3: Wow. Well that is pretty cool. Oh I love that
Speaker 3: little Journy Wren. Hey, Jenny, Yeah, it's so beautiful. Now
Speaker 3: now why is that so beautiful?
Speaker 7: Young?
Speaker 2: But also, you know what, that gives one faith that
Speaker 2: everything comes together connected.
Speaker 3: I think so too.
Speaker 2: Do Jenny Wren from Chaos and Creation in the Backyard,
Speaker 2: released in two thousand and five. In the next episode,
Speaker 2: an argument through song, you know.
Speaker 7: Now what can?
Speaker 4: It was at a time when John was firing missiles
Speaker 4: at me with his songs. I don't know what he
Speaker 4: hoped again, other than punching me in the face. And
Speaker 4: this kind of annoyed me.
Speaker 3: Obviously, I suddenly decided to turn my missiles on him.
Speaker 2: McCartney. A Life in Lyrics is a co production between
Speaker 2: iHeartMedia NPL and Pushkin Industries.