"Ebony and Ivory" is a 1982 number-one single by Paul McCartney and Stevie Wonder. It was released on March 29 of that year. The song is featured on McCartney's album Tug of War. A self-empowerment hit that addresses issues of racial equality, the song reached number one on both the UK and the US charts. It reappears on McCartney's All the Best! hits compilation, and also on the UK two-disc version of Wonder's The Definitive Collectiongreatest hits compilation. In 2013, Billboard ranked the song as the 69th biggest hit of all-time on the Billboard Hot 100 charts.
Background
At the simplest level, the song is about the ebony and ivory keys on a piano, but also deals with integration and racial harmony on a deeper, human level. The title was inspired by McCartney hearing Spike Milligan say "black notes, white notes, and you need to play the two to make harmony, folks!". The figure of speech is much older. It was popularized by James Aggrey in the 1920s, inspiring the title of the pan-African journal The Keys, but was in use from at least the 1840s. Written by McCartney alone, the song was performed live in the studio by both McCartney and Wonder, though due to conflicting work schedules, both recorded their parts for the song's music video separately. A video for the solo version was also made, which showed McCartney playing piano with a bright spotlight, and black males in prison, including one of them being uplifted by the song, dancing and listening to it in prison as well as in the studio. This version was directed by Barry Myers on 11 February 1982. That same day, McCartney filmed a promotional interview for the Tug of War album. The B-side of the single, the song "Rainclouds", is written by Paul McCartney and Denny Laine, though on early pressings of the single the song was credited only to McCartney.
Chart performance
"Ebony and Ivory" spent seven weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100, and was the fourth-biggest hit of 1982. For McCartney, the song's run atop the chart was the longest of any of his post-Beatles works, and second longest career-wise ; for Wonder, it was his longest-running chart-topper and made him the first solo artist to score a least one No. 1 single within three consecutive decades. It marked the first time that any single released by any member of the Beatles hit the Billboard R&B chart. It was McCartney's record 28th song to hit number one on the Billboard 100. In 2008, the song was ranked at #59 on Billboard's Greatest Songs of all time. In 2013, it was ranked #69 on the Billboard list of the Hot 100 songs of all-time.
Critical reception
The song was derided as "saccharine" and was later named as the tenth worst song of all time by Blender magazine in April 2009. In October 2007, it was named the worst duet in history by BBC 6 Music listeners. The song and video were spoofed in a 1983 Saturday Night Live sketch, with Eddie Murphy portraying Wonder and Joe Piscopo, as Frank Sinatra, assuming McCartney's role. In the sketch, Sinatra criticizes the "ebony and ivory" metaphor for racial equality as being "too artsy for the public – capiche?" After a brief exchange, the duo perform the song with more direct, and offensive lyrics. The phrase, "Keyboard, Oh Lord! Why Don't We?" was used for the title of the third album by Norwegian stoner rock bandThulsa Doom. The song and video were parodied in a commercial for the 2008 season of the USA Network showPsych. "Ebony and Ivory" was banned in South Africa by the South African Broadcasting Corporation during the Apartheid era, making it the only song McCartney released in his solo career to receive such a ban. The official reason for the song's ban was because Stevie Wonder accepted his 1984 Academy Award for Best Original Song "in the name of Nelson Mandela."
