That is indeed insane. Was the original price for the set from PF's website $485, or was it somewhat lower (assuming that the current $485 price on Amazon is higher than the original price due to scarcity)? Since the crazy PF deal was available on Amazon 6 months after release, could it be assumed that the set did not sell as well as originally planned and that these were surplus copies? At least they weren't available at the low price as a pre-sale (like the rogue Wings Big Box set entry on Amazon).
And yet it is full of archived articles and audio/video interviews that date much further back. But nothing from the 1960s saying Blackbird is about the civil rights movement. Obviously the true believers and the skeptics won't convince each other here. So I'll just say that Blackbird is a fantastic song -- one of my favorites on the White Album and possibly even better without the bird sounds on Wings Over America -- even though I always thought (and still do) that it's just generally about being optimistic and overcoming adversity, and have never bought the retro-fitted story. And I think I'm done sidetracking the 1972-73 talk.
I agree with you that Paul's a talented, underrated lyricist when he makes the effort. He's written many great lyrics, Blackbird and GTGYIML among them. I just don't believe his latter-day claims as to what they were written about. He was performing Blackbird live as early as 1975, and yet he never once took the opportunity to say, "hey, you know this one was actually about...."? I don't buy it. I'm not saying he's lying, exactly. I just think he has a natural inclination to reconfigure past events to suit what he wants to believe and - in some cases - give his work a bit of extra gravitas. I suspect that, over time, he's convinced himself "that must've been what I was writing about!" It's a nice story to trot out if you're performing at the White House, for example, or trying to show your words were as 'important' as Lennon's. But my own personal view is that Blackbird was a more general metaphor when he wrote it, and that GTGYIML was a love lyric which also incorporated some of his feelings about pot in the opening verse. But hey, it all works either way. That's the beauty of lyrics.
I cannot imagine 1957 McCartney writing a song such as Blackbird. Can’t see him being too clued up on US Civil Rights movements at the time either. Just because he didn’t publicly speak about the song’s meaning at the time, doesn’t discredit his later recollections. Did Paul often publically discuss the inspiration to his songs in the 60’s and 70’s?
The only thing McCartney fans hate more than Paul telling the same old stories they have heard a thousand times before is Paul telling a story they haven't heard before.
Damn people can you please stick to the thread subject! If you wanna discuss "Blackbird" go to the white album threads where its been discussed ad naseum. I wanna hear about Wild Life and RRS thanks. BTW "Best Friend" AIN'T about John.. get real.. its about a dog
There never was a second edition of the special “red acrylic and prints” Tug of War box, so there would not be a precedent for a second run of the Big Barn Box. But who knows? The way the “sold out” language reads, it certainly begs the question whether there will be a second edition.
I always thought Jet was a dog, but apparently Jet was a horse. And he was on Jet when the inspiration for the song arrived. Makes sense. Unless he was being revisionist.
The super deluxe Tug of War was announced as a "strictly limited run of 1000." The 1971-1973 box was announced as a "numbered limited edition." The number has never been specified. The individual boxes for Wild Life and Red Rose Speedway are also described as numbered limited editions in the same announcement.
The language on the 1971-73 box definitely leaves the door open for the possibility of a second run. It's quite different from, say, the language used for some of the Bob Dylan sets, which makes it clear that once they're gone, they're gone.
Maybe it was Paul & Linda’s Dalmatian that was named Jet? Edit: “We've got a Labrador puppy who is a runt, the runt of a litter. We bought her along a roadside in a little pet shop, out in the country one day. She was a bit of a wild dog, a wild girl who wouldn't stay in. We have a big wall around our house in London, and she wouldn't stay in, she always used to jump the wall. She'd go out on the town for the evening, like Lady and the Tramp. She must have met up with some big black Labrador or something. She came back one day pregnant. She proceeded to walk into the garage and have this litter... Seven little black puppies, perfect little black Labradors, and she's not black, she's tan. So we worked out it must have been a black Labrador.” “What we do is if either of the dogs we have has a litter, we try to keep them for the puppy stage, so we get the best bit of them, and then when they get a bit unmanageable we ask people if they want to have a puppy. So Jet was one of the puppies. We give them all names. We've had some great names, there was one puppy called Golden Molasses. I rather like that. Then there was one called Brown Megs, named after a Capitol executive. They've all gone now. The people change the names if they don't like them.” Paul McCartney: In His Own Words
This was what I always understood as well. But someone (#Glenn Christensen ?) provided me with a quote about Paul writing the song while riding a horse. I can't for the life of me find it! Or maybe I'm going senile (always a possibility).
