Ebony and Ivory - Paul McCartney & Stevie Wonder

Paul McCartney&Stevie Wonder

EBONY AND IVORY

"Ebony and Ivory" is a song that was released in 1982 as a single by Paul McCartney featuring Stevie Wonder.

Written by McCartney, the song aligns the black and white keys of a piano keyboard with the theme of racial harmony.

The single reached number one on both the UK and the US charts and was among the top-selling singles of 1982 in the US. During the apartheid era, the South African Broadcasting Corporation banned the song after Wonder dedicated his 1984 Academy Award for Best Original Song to Nelson Mandela.

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The single marked the first time that McCartney had released a duet with another major artist, and anticipated his 1980s collaborations with Michael Jackson.

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.

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As already said, the song is about the ebony (black) and ivory (white) keys on a piano, but also deals with integration and racial harmony. The title was inspired by McCartney hearing Spike Milligan say, "Black notes, white notes, and you need to play the two to make harmony, folks!"

The issues about life presented in this song

This song tells that humans should live harmoniously regardless of race and colour. Like Ebony and Ivory, which are complementary to each other, we humans are complement to one another. In order to live peacefully and harmoniously, we should accept everyone's differences.

This song contains a deep message of unity and brotherhood. It calls the harmony between the people of different races, especially the blacks and the whites.The music is melodious and invites to sing and dance.

This song was one of the first songs that mix pop and rhythm and blues, by the encounter of an influent pop artist and an influent rhythm and blues artist. We can see the influence of pop music with the synthesizer and the electric guitar, and the influence of blues with the drum.

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