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 McCartneys and Laine again added new members, recruiting guitarist Laurence Juber and drummer Steve Holley. The resulting album, "Back to the Egg", was a relative flop, with its singles under-performing and the critical reception negative. During the supporting tour, Paul McCartney was arrested in Japan for cannabis possession, putting the band on hold. Despite a final US number one, the live version of McCartney's solo single "Coming Up", after Laine departed from the band, Wings discontinued for good in 1981. After the Beatles' break-up in 1970, McCartney recorded two albums: "McCartney" (1970), credited to himself, and "Ram" (1971), with wife