Symbols - Blackbird/ Great Swamp Symphony

Mike Post produced Soul/ gospel reworking of The Beatles track

Label: Bell

Year of Release: 1971

Just when you think you've been made aware of all the one-single wonder groups whose sole effort was a Beatles cover, another rears its head. Sometimes it's like one big game of whack-a-mole where all the rodents are wearing Woolworths Beatle wigs.

Soul and reggae covers of Beatles tracks are by no means uncommon, and "Blackbird" should perhaps be considered one of the most appropriate choices for politically minded groups during the sixties and seventies. Apparently written by McCartney partly in response to the black civil rights struggle in America, "Blackbird" may act as a discreet, delicate, folksy moment on "The White Album", but its background message had a far greater power potentially waiting to be amplified. 

This clearly wasn't lost on The Symbols (or the ska group The Paragons in 1973) who deliver a much punchier, less subtle version of the song here. Gospel vocals holler "Fly blackbird fly!" at regular intervals while the arrangement of McCartney's original finger-plucked version is swamped by strings and roaring vocal harmonies. It's transformed from a plaintive and pretty tune into a sweeping, panoramic piece, like something you would expect to hear in the concluding dramatic moments of a motion picture. 

The big question is whether the song can still hold up under such a bold reinvention, and I'm actually rather uncertain about that. Its original strength lay in its campfire simplicity, and the rearrangement here bombards your ears with endless elaborations and ideas. If you've heard and enjoyed the original a hundred times, it's going to take a lot of adjustment to settle into this take, and I don't think I've quite managed to get there myself yet.  Still, it's another one for the Beatles notebooks, and I'm fascinated by the attempt, even if I probably will be more likely to spin The Paragons effort more frequently. 

The flipside is also interesting, being an ambitious slice of sprawling boogie which continually morphs and changes direction just when you think you've finally nailed it. 

I have utterly no idea who The Symbols are, though the producer Mike Post - whose name is emblazoned across the label here - went on to huge success as a composer of television themes, from The Rockford Files to The A Team to bloody Hill Street Blues. He was also later shown appreciation on the Northern Soul circuit for his track "Afternoon Of The Rhino".