Introduction : change the history : the blackbird in song, story, and transatlantic flight
Free (free) as a bird : the legacy of the ring shout, flying Africans, and gospel in Black music and the Beatles
Sing a song of blackbird : pre-twentieth-century transatlantic flights in Black music, the Beatles, and Liverpool
I'm a little blackbird : Florence Mills, blackbirds of the Harlem Renaissance, and the Beatles' jazz age predecessors
Flying across the ocean : Lead Belly, "Grey goose," and the Beatles' Liverpool skiffle scene
You can fly away : Lord Woodbine and Lord Kitchener, "Yellow bird," and calypso in the Beatles' Liverpool club scene
You ain't ever gonna fly : Nina Simone's "Blackbird" and revolutionary responses to the Beatles
A blackbird on a white album : Aretha Franklin, Jimi Hendrix, Diana Ross, and other winged inspirations in and around 1968
Like a bird up in the sky : Billy Preston flies to the Beatles in London and circles back to LA with "Blackbird"
Y'all ready girls? : "Blackbird" soars in San Francisco with Sylvester, two tons o' fun, and the band
I was just seeing myself singing : Bettye LaVette on interpreting the Beatles and singing a bridge of blackbirds
Conclusion : twenty-first-century "Blackbird" in Paul McCartney's legend, for #BlackLivesMatter, and into transoceanic flightpaths.