Spanish-American singer-songwriter Victoria Canal gave the words ‘take these broken wings and learn to fly’ a new meaning with a rendition of The Beatles’ classic Blackbird on the piano, garnering praise for her striking reharmonisation of the chords.
Canal, 27, was born without her right forearm due to amniotic band syndrome.
“Every blackbird in its right place,” the musician captioned her post on Instagram.
Blackbird was written and performed as a solo piece by The Beatles member Paul McCartney. The song is part of the band’s 1968 double album The Beatles.
The original recording of Blackbird features McCartney on a Martin D-28 acoustic guitar. In his thirteenth solo studio album, Chaos and Creation in the Backyard (2005), he revealed that the guitar accompaniment was inspired by Johann Sebastian Bach’s Bourree in E minor, a celebrated lute piece from the 1700s.
What sets Canal’s recreation apart is her reharmonisation of the track, replacing the iconic guitar work with haunting piano chords.
“The way you changed the chords adds such beauty to this song,” wrote a fan. “Your ear for harmonics is stunning,” commented another. “This is the most gorgeous, moody, cathartic version of Blackbird that I've ever heard,” added a third. “Very cool reharmonization,” wrote yet another fan.
Several fans noted that Canal’s rendition felt tailor-made for the screen. “I need this to be the closeout music for when a favorite character dies off in a medical drama during the winter,” commented one. “Belongs to a Dr. House episode for real. I don’t know why but I feel it. Haunting. In the best way,” wrote another.
Since composing Blackbird in 1968, McCartney has given various statements regarding both his inspiration for the song and its meaning. According to media reports, Blackbird was inspired to write the song by the call of a blackbird one morning when the Beatles were studying Transcendental Meditation in Rishikesh, India. McCartney has also said that he wrote the song in Scotland as a response to racial tensions escalating in the United States during the spring of 1968.
Blackbird has been covered by numerous artists including Agua De Annique, Crosby, Stills & Nash, Judy Collins, Neil Diamond, Billy Preston, Sia and Sarah McLachlan. In 2024, Beyonce recorded her own version of the song for her eighth studio album Cowboy Carter, which became the highest-charting rendition of Blackbird on the Billboard Hot 100.
Introduced to music by her grandmother at an early age, Canal began taking classical lessons in piano and voice from the age of six.
At 13, while living in Dubai, Canal recorded her first original demo CD at JR Studios. As her training intensified, she and her mother relocated to Atlanta in April 2015, where she recorded her debut EP Into the Pull and embarked on her first tour. In March 2023, it was announced that Canal would open for Hozier on several dates of his Unreal Unearth Tour across Europe and the UK. Soon after, she was awarded the Amazon Music Ivors Academy Rising Star Award. Canal joined Coldplay on piano and vocals for their performance of Paradise at the Glastonbury Festival last year.