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
Paul McCartney and Wings its alleged drug and sexual references. The B-side, "C Moon", was played instead. The single peaked at number 5 in the UK. The band were renamed "Paul McCartney and Wings" for the 1973 album "Red Rose Speedway", which yielded their first US number 1 hit, "My Love". The album included two tracks left over from the "Ram" sessions and was originally intended as a two-record set. After producer Glyn Johns had walked out on the project, however, McCartney conceded to EMI's opinion that the material was "substandard" and cut it down to a single disc. Among the unreleased songs from