But, with all that airplay, listeners quickly tired of the song, and it gradually faded from view, dropping off the charts soon afterwards. When ‘Ebony And Ivory’ was issued as a single on McCartney’s 1982 album Tug Of War, it quickly became a hit in the US, staying at Number Oen for no less than seven weeks. “We all know that people are the same wherever you go,” he and Stevie sing, “There is good and bad in everyone.” Lines such as these reveal a song that is clearly a product of its time. The slightly self-effacing cheesiness of the record is further heightened by Paul’s gratingly polished melodies, which guide his voice upwards as he espouses a view of racism designed for the benefit of fragile white listeners. In this way, the track was designed to attack the idea of racial segregation, something Paul had first become aware of in 1964, when The Beatles, on their first trip to America, refused to play a show while the audience was segregated. ‘Ebony and Ivory’ uses the extended metaphor of the black and white keys on McCartney’s piano to paint a utopian image of a world in which racial hatred has been extinguished, and everyone lives together in “perfect harmony.” McCartney was fond of the analogy because, while you can play with just white keys and just black keys, to make truly brilliant music, you need to combine the two. It was loathed at the time and, 40 years later, I don’t seem much reason for that disdain to let up: ‘Ebony and Ivory’ isn’t just painfully dull on a musical level, its whole message is also dangerously reductive. The 1982 duet between Paul McCartney and Stevie Wonder is undoubtedly one of the most hated pieces of music ever to emerge from a recording studio, ranking just below Mr Blobby’s 1993 Christmas Number One, ‘Mr Blobby’ in terms of its capability to make you want to eat your own ears. There’s a reason the comments section is turned off on the ‘Ebony and Ivory’ Youtube page.
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