Blackbird

     During spring break, I was sitting in my parents kitchen eating breakfast when my little sister started humming "Blackbird" by the Beatles under her breath.  It was stuck in my head the entire day, and I have listened to a cover of the song by Sarah Darling at least five times now. 

    While reading Ovid's metamorphasis this afternoon, I was all of a sudden struck by how often birds are involved in the transformations throughout the various stories.  From book two with the the stories of the crow and raven to the story of Pierides becoming parrots.  So, now at my curiosity at the deeper meaning of the song I started to research the meaning behind the lyrics.  According to the different things I found, Paul McCartney was inspired by many things to write the song.  One of them was the racial tension in the United States, but also that he used the poem by RS Thomas "Blackbird Singing" as well.  But my mind just starts to wander sometimes and poetry and Blackbirds brings me back to the days of high school English class and the study of Edgar Allen Poe with his poem "The Raven".  I looked up the poem and I had to smile because I realized Poe also knew his Ovid.  One of the lines of his poem says. 

Open here I flung the shutter, when, with many a flirt and flutter,
In there stepped a stately raven of the saintly days of yore.
Not the least obeisance made he; not a minute stopped or stayed he;
But, with mien of lord or lady, perched above my chamber door -
Perched upon a bust of Pallas just above my chamber door -
Perched, and sat, and nothing more.

Poe is most obviously referencing to the story of the Raven were Pallas was directly involved.  I just had to smile that a simple song could cause me to finally make a mythic detective finding that made me smile.