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 McCartney; three songs on Laine's 1980 solo album "Japanese Tears" were performed by Wings with Laine on lead vocals; Laine also contributed to several songs on Paul McCartney's 1982 and 1983 solo albums "Tug of War" and "Pipes of Peace", respectively. Juber's instrumental "Maisie"—which was backed by members of Wings—appeared on his solo album "Standard Time". The McCartneys and Laine contributed backing vocals to George Harrison's 1981 tribute to John Lennon, "All Those Years Ago". Linda McCartney continued to tour and record with her husband up until her death in 1998, after which a compilation of her songs entitled "Wide