Monday October 11, 2021 “Maxwell’s Silver Hammer” Beatles
We have examined many different aspects of rock & roll in the past and this week we are going down a really dark path to take a look at ‘rock & roll murder, so foul’. I suspect you might dismiss this topic as a stretch but I think you will be surprised at how many songs deal with the topic.
We’ll just cover a few and what better place to start than with the Beatles and their rather violent Maxwell Edison and his silver hammer, yes he actually had a last name.
Paul McCartney wrote and sang this song about a young man who had a penchant for bludgeoning people with a hammer. Paul tried to minimize the violence by saying that “It epitomizes the downfalls in life. Just when everything is going smoothly, Bang! Bang! down comes Maxwell's Silver Hammer and ruins everything.”
I’m not buying it. I think he was just tired of writing happy, poppy songs, and there is absolutely no reason to apologize about doing that, but he wanted to go darker...but still with a happy, poppy tune.
John Lennon does not appear on this tune as he was recovering from an automobile accident and Ringo indicated that it was not a happy time recording “Maxwell…” saying, “"The worst session ever was 'Maxwell's Silver Hammer.' It was the worst track we ever had to record. It went on for f--king weeks. I thought it was mad."
Maxwell’s Silver Hammer is included on the Beatles album Abbey Road which fueled the rumor that Paul was dead. Maybe we’ll spend some time in a future week examining whether Paul actually was dead then, maybe not.
Stay safe and well...and in my best Vincent Price voice, ‘this is only the beginning, ha ha ha ha…’