McCartney wrote "Ebony and Ivory" at his farm in Scotland. The song is about the ebony (black) and ivory (white) keys on a piano, but also deals with integration and racial harmony. 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.