24 April 1982
There is good and bad in everyone. Can we say the same about this, perhaps the most reviled pop hit of the ’80s?
Well, the chorus is catchy. But that’s what ensures ‘Ebony And Ivory’ lives on in infamy; no one who hears it can forget its horrors. This is a song so useless that even its one slight good point ends up working against it.
The bad in ‘Ebony And Ivory’ is legion. Its titular metaphor—its Big Idea—is so condescending and trite that McCartney should have been banned from ever attempting to think a grown-up thought again. As a record it sounds ghastly; saccharine synthesisers dipped in gloopy reverb, playing big dramatic chords to impress on us the grandeur of McCartney’s vision. Stevie Wonder is clearly just here as a token Black person. And the video (below) famously shows Paul and Stevie side by side only by the wonders of editing, not that this rotten song had any credibility to undermine.
Stevie Wonder has his own horrendous ’80s records to come, but we can lay the turd of blame for ‘Ebony And Ivory’ on McCartney’s doorstep. The lack of self-awareness, the preachy tone, the piano-driven seriousness; turns out Paul did end up making his own ‘Imagine’ after all.
