Singer takes on Paul McCartney-penned “Blackbird”
Cowboy Carter has arrived in areas of the world where it’s already Friday — i.e. New Zealand and Australia — and more details about Beyoncé’s new album have emerged.
Yesterday’s reveal of the Cowboy Carter track list confirmed that the album featured her long-rumored cover of Dolly Parton’s “Jolene,” but the Australasian release also brings news that “Blackbiird” — stylized with double i’s on the track list — is actually a cover of the Beatles’ White Album classic “Blackbird,” a song that Paul McCartney penned in tribute to the Little Rock Nine.
The album itself is presented as a broadcast by fictional Texas radio station KNTRY, and the country legends name-checked on the track list — Dolly Parton, Willie Nelson, and country pioneer Linda Martell — all pop up as guests in interludes throughout the album.
As for other guests, Miley Cyrus appears on the Cowboy Carter cut “II Most Wanted,” while Post Malone stops by on the very next track, “Levii’s Jeans.” Shaboozey contributes to the track “Spaghettii,” while Tanner Adell and Willie Jones are also among the album’s guests. (Contrary to what the entire internet wanted, Taylor Swift does not appear on Cowboy Carter.)
However, as Rolling Stone previously reported, while they won’t be listed as “featured artists,” Beyoncé recorded “Texas Hold ‘Em” and “16 Carriages” with an assortment of well-known musicians. The celebrated multi-instrumentalist Rhiannon Giddens played banjo and viola on “Texas Hold ‘Em,” while pedal steel player Justin Schipper, steel guitarist Robert Randolph, and producer/multi-instrumentalist Raphael Saadiq joined her on “16 Carriages.”
“When we did the first session, I was like, ‘What are we doing?’” Randolph told Rolling Stone. “Raphael said, ‘Here’s what Beyoncé has in her head. And you were hand-picked because you’re the only guy who could do this.’ Beyoncé already had an idea of what she wanted to do. She wanted to do something with some playing, with some country fire. She said she liked the way I make my instrument sound like a singer.”
Depending on your time zone, Cowboy Carter will arrive at midnight on Friday.
