Bye Bye Blackbird, Bye Bye

Factual Questions
1

Who wrote this song and what do the words…lyrics mean? Something about those words are haunting me.

Remember Joe Cocker and Stevie Ray Vaughn both recorded it plus many others, but I think it’s a real old song?

Here’s the lyrics…as close as I can get anyway.

Pack up all my cares and woe
Here I go singing low
Bye bye blackbird.

Where somebody waits for me
Sugar sweet so is she
Bye bye blackbird

No one here can love and understand me
Oh those hard luck stories they all hand me
So lock the door and light the light
I’ll be home late tonight
Black bird bye bye.

2

Well, here’s the full lyrics and the authors’ names, at least. I think it’s pretty much the same as what you put, but I haven’t found any further info on the origins of the song yet.

3

Among twenty snowy mountains,
The only moving thing
Was the eye of the blackbird.

I was of three minds,
Like a tree
In which there are three blackbirds.

The blackbird whirled in the autumn winds.
It was a small part of the pantomime.

A man and a woman
Are one.
A man and a woman and a blackbird
Are one.

– from “Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird,” by Wallace Stevens

4

Checking in a little late on this one . . . “Bye, Bye, Blackbird” was a major hit in the late 1920s—1926, I think. The recording I have goes,

Blackbird, blackbird singing the blues all day,
Right outside of my door.
Blackbird, blackbird, what’s that I hear you say?
There’s no sunshine in store.
All through the winter you hung around,
Now I begin to feel homward-bound;
Blackbird, blackbird, gotta be on my way–
Where’s there’s sunshine galore!

Pack up all my care and woe
Here I go, singing low:
Bye, bye blackbird.
Where somebody cares for me,
Sugar’s sweet, so is he—
Bye, bye, blackbird.
No one here can love and understand me,
Oh what hard-luck stories they all hand me.
Make my bed and light the light,
I’ll be home late tonight.
Blackbird, bye bye!

Bluebird, bluebird, calling me far away—
I’ve been lonely for you.
Bluebird, bluebird, what’s that I hear you say?
Skies are turning to blue.
I’m like a flower that’s fading here,
Where every hour is one long year—
Bluebird, bluebird, gotta be on my way
Now my dreams will come true!

Pay my debts and pack my bag,
On my trunk there’s a tag:
Bye, bye, blackbird.
I won’t wait to catch no train,
I’ll hop right on an aeroplane,
Bye, bye blackbird!
Let a million bluebirds start a-humming,
Tell my dear old Mammy I’m a-coming!
My my bed, light the light,
Then I’ll say nighty-night—
Blackbird, bye bye!

–Hope that’s some help anbd gets you all humming today . . .

5

Yeah, yeah. I still say they shoulda just set the Stevens poem to music.