Jenny Wren / Blackbird

McCartney: A Life in Lyrics

iHeartPodcasts and Pushkin Industries

Music, Arts, Society & Culture

4.4 • 733 Ratings

🗓️ 29 November 2023

⏱️ 28 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

“Long Tailed Winter Bird,” “Bluebird,” and “Single Pigeon” are just a few of the many bird-oriented songs Paul McCartney has written over the years. His love of ornithology extends back before his songwriting days to his early childhood. “Blackbird”, one of the most universally cherished songs in his canon, was born of that love and worked well with the civil rights allusions that were the song’s subtext. The latter day companion of “Blackbird”, “Jenny Wren,” was also born of that love. Released 40 years apart, those two songs explore McCartney as an ornithologist as well as the ways in which he’s in dialogue with his songs as a writer.

“McCartney: A Life in Lyrics” is a co-production between iHeart Media, MPL and Pushkin Industries.

The series was produced by Pejk Malinovski and Sara McCrea; written by Sara McCrea; edited by Dan O’Donnell and Sophie Crane; mastered by Jason Gambrell with sound design by Pejk Malinovski. The series is executive produced by Leital Molad, Justin Richmond, Lee Eastman, Scott Rodger and Paul McCartney.

Thanks to Lee Eastman, Richard Ewbank, Scott Rodger, Aoife Corbett and Steve Ithell.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	This is an I-Heart podcast.
0:14.4	Elon Musk, the richest man on the planet, and Stephen Fry, the British comedian and public intellectual, are two people
0:22.2	who probably agree on almost nothing.
0:25.5	But they share a deep love for science fiction writer Douglas Adams, the genius behind the hitchhiker's
0:33.0	Guide to the Galaxy.
0:35.1	My name is Arvind Ethan David, and I'm the author of Douglas Adams, The Ends of the Earth.
0:42.2	In my new audiobook, you'll hear rare recordings from the man who inspired a generation
0:47.4	of futurists, technologists, and scientists.
0:51.6	You'll hear readings of his visionary work from the voices of those who knew and loved him best, people like Stephen Fry and David Bediel.
1:00.6	Get Douglas Adams the ends of the earth now at Pushkin.fm slash audiobooks, or wherever audiobooks are sold.
1:17.6	Look, there's a beautiful bird.
1:23.1	I loved bird watching when I was a kid.
1:26.6	How can you tell one bird from another?
1:32.3	I like to be able to get out of the normal stream of life. We were about a mile away from quite deep countryside.
1:41.3	So I used to just go out on my own, just being away from the normal stuff, school,
1:47.0	family life. Appearance is one way to identify birds. How does it look? I had a little bird book,
1:54.9	The Observer's Book of Birds. In yards or in parks, wherever people are, you are likely to find another small bird with a beautiful song.
2:04.6	The wren was a great favorite, because you wouldn't see that often.
2:09.6	It just suddenly said flit from one little bush to another.
2:12.6	This small brownish bird is a wren.
2:15.6	And singing as it goes.
2:22.6	We can learn to know wrens by their sound.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from iHeartPodcasts and Pushkin Industries, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of iHeartPodcasts and Pushkin Industries and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.