Advanced Acoustic, Country & Folk, Songbook A-Z

Blackbird Chords | The Beatles Guitar Lesson

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Blackbird | Chords + Lyrics

Intro

| 3/4 G Am7 G/B | 4/4 G |

Verse 1

| 3/4 G Am7 G/B | 4/4 G |
Blackbird singing in the dead of night.
| C C#dim Dadd4 D#b5 | Em Eb |
Take these broken wings and learn to fly.
| Dadd4 C#dim C | Cm G/B | A7 D7sus4 | 2/4 G | C G/B A7 | D7sus4 G |
All your life, you were only waiting for this moment to arise.

Verse 2

Chorus 1

Instrumental 1

Chorus 2

Blackbird fly,
blackbird fly, into the light of the dark black night.

Instrumental 2

| 3/4 G Am7 G/B | 4/4 G | G | G | 5/4 G |
| G Am7 G/B C | G/B A7 D7sus4 |

Verse 3

| 3/4 G Am7 G/B | 4/4 G |
Blackbird singing in the dead of night.
| C C#dim Dadd4 D#b5 | Em Eb |
Take these broken wings and learn to fly.
| Dadd4 C#dim C | Cm G/B | A7 D7sus4 |
All your life, you were only waiting for this moment to arise.
| G C G/B | A7 D7sus4 |
You were only waiting for this moment to arise.
| G C G/B | A7 D7sus4 | G |
You were only waiting for this moment to arise.

Blackbird Chords: A Detailed Breakdown

The full chord progression for Blackbird’s verse is as follows:

Describing this using Roman numerals is complex. Ultimately, you’ll want to play it exactly like the original, so muscle memory is key.

Still, it’s interesting to break down the chords and understand their structure. Let’s take it line by line:

The first line (3/4 bar to 4/4 bar) ascends up the scale: I – II – I/3 – I.
The second line ascends chromatically: IV – #IVdim – V – #Vb5 – VI, then descends to bVIx (Eb).
The third line descends from V – #IVdim – IV, followed by the IVm – I/3. The last two bars move up in 4ths from IIx – V – I.

The chorus chords shift away from the key of G. They are:

This can be tricky to wrap your head around. If we stay in the key of G, the Roman numerals would be:

bVIIx – VI – Vm – IV – bIIIx – IV for the first line.

However, if we consider this in the key of C, the progression looks like this:

IV – III – II – I – bVIIx – I.

This interpretation seems more logical, so we could say there’s a modal interchange happening here—from G Ionian to Mixolydian—or possibly even a key change from G to C.

A similar modal interchange occurs in Tears in Heaven, for example.

Here’s a chord chart I made for you.

Blackbird Chord Chart | PDF + iReal Pro

As mentioned, Blackbird is a piece of music you should learn exactly like the original, heavily relying on muscle memory.

As you learn it using TAB, the chords will indicate what the TAB is doing. This means that once you can play it, the chords will serve as a reminder, enabling us to write a chart summing it all up, like the one I made for you above.

Should you want to download this chart, here’s a PDF: Blackbird Chord Chart PDF.

This chart was created using iRealPro, here’s a link to that file: Blackbird iReal Pro.

Below, you get a preview of how we play and practise Blackbird in the course.

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Blackbird TAB | Course Preview

Blackbird‘s chords are best learned by being divided into seven little loops and practised slowly at first.

Example 1 is the same as the intro and the beginning of the verse. There’s a 3/4 bar followed by a 4/4, the chords are:

| 3/4 G (I) Am7 (II) G/B (I/3) | 4/4 G (I) |

Using TAB, we play like this on a loop until it’s ingrained in your muscle memory:

In the full lesson in the course, you only need six more loops like this to practise and you will have covered all the chords in Blackbird.

Overall, this is what you need to focus on if you want to learn how to play Blackbird on the guitar:

A constant open G string binds the chords together
A unique index finger strumming technique
Variations in the chord progression like IV – IVm
A key change for the chorus
Odd time signatures for a bar only
Passing chords that seem to be dim7

Blackbird‘s index finger strumming

Unique to Blackbird is the strange index finger strumming technique. This is a homemade technique I’ve never seen before or since, which is strange as it’s so brilliant!

Combining the thumb plucking and strumming strings using a downward motion, the index finger strums the upper part of the chord.

Paul learned how to play like this from Donovan, a Scottish folk artist who hung around The Beatles and Bob Dylan in the ’60s.

Speaking of Bob, the rhythm of Blackbird‘s strumming is the same as that of Blowin’ In The Wind.

Practising the aforementioned seven loops will get you to a place where you can play Blackbird in a comfortable way, even though this unique index finger strumming technique will be new to you.

We also sandwich some scale practice with these Blackbird loops, before we play the complete song and then finally build a 2nd guitar part.

Learn the 2nd guitar part so you, I, and the singer can play Blackbird together, like a folk trio! You’ll find a full performance on one acoustic guitar as well as that 2nd guitar in the playlist at the top of this page.

Here’s a link to the 8 step-by-step guitar lessons: Blackbird – Guitar Lessons with TAB.

McCartney wrote Blackbird‘s chords when The Beatles were at their peak!

Blackbird was written by Paul McCartney after he was woken up by a bird at six o’clock, in India.

Released on The White Album (used as slang, it was simply called The Beatles, printed on a white cover), in 1968, it instantly became yet another classic to add to their immense legacy.

As a follow-up to the legendary Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band a year earlier, and John Lennon claiming The Beatles to be “bigger than Jesus”, they had by now become the most discussed band in the world.

The White Album sold a staggering nineteen times platinum in the U.S. alone and charted at #1 in six countries.

The Beatles responded by making fun of everything. For example, they would give journalists new answers to the same questions, constantly pushing the boundaries of what they would print.

To this day, some of these stories have managed to stick.

In Wikipedia, Blackbird is said to be a song that Paul wrote after seeing racial tension escalate in America, he sang “Blackbird fly”, referring to the idea that black women should get out of there.

Lennon would have been in stitches if he knew!

In 2024, Beyoncé covered Blackbird, again, McCartney claimed that he’s proud of how she’s recognising the original reason Blackbird was written, as a call to end racism for women.

This is great proof that if you keep hammering home a message, it eventually becomes true, even when it started as a joke!

Blackbird Chords: Continue Learning

Blackbird by The Beatles is a legendary song that we simply must learn note-for-note, just like Paul McCartney played it.

Once this is achieved, we can learn from Blackbird by building a 2nd guitar part and play the tune together, like a folk duo.

Start learning with the full lesson series: Blackbird – Guitar Lessons with TAB.

Alternatively, here are five similar tunes you might enjoy: