John Lennon (in 1980) - "I gave him (Paul) a line on that one."
Paul McCartney (in 1994) - "The original inspiration was from a well-known piece by Bach, which I never know the title of, which George and I had learned to play at an early age-- he better than me actually. Part of its structure is a particular harmonic thing between the melody and the bass line which intrigued me... I developed the melody based on the Bach piece and took it somewhere else, took it to another level, then I just fitted words to it. I had in my mind a black woman, rather than a bird. Those were the days of the civil-rights movement, which all of us cared passionately about. So this was really a song from me to a black woman, experiencing these problems in the states... 'Let me encourage you to keep trying, to keep your faith, there is hope.' As is often the case with my things, a veiling took place. So, rather than say 'Black woman living in Little Rock' and be very specific, she became a bird, became symbolic, so you could apply it to your particular problem."
