Ebony and Ivory "Billboard" Hot 100 charts. At the simplest level, the song is about the ebony (black) and ivory (white) 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 popularised 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
Stevie Wonder but eventually became a major success when re-released as a single in 1970, which prompted Robinson to reconsider his intention of leaving the group). In 1968 he recorded an album of instrumental soul/jazz tracks, mostly harmonica solos, under the title "Eivets Rednow", which is "Stevie Wonder" spelled backwards. The album failed to get much attention, and its only single, a cover of "Alfie", only reached number 66 on the U.S. Pop charts and number 11 on the US Adult Contemporary charts. Nonetheless, he managed to score several hits between 1968 and 1970 such as "I Was Made to Love Her",