Maxwell's Silver Hammer

"Maxwell's Silver Hammer"
Song

"Maxwell's Silver Hammer" is a song by The Beatles, from the Abbey Road album, with Paul McCartney singing lead. It was written by McCartney, though the songwriting credit is Lennon/McCartney.

Structure

The vaudevillian-style song is about medical student Maxwell Edison, who uses his silver hammer to murder his girlfriend Joan, then his teacher, and finally the judge during his murder trial. Despite the grim subject matter, the song is bouncy and upbeat (a "Happy song about murder"). The "Silver Hammer Man" coda seems to be a deliberate pastiche of Mason Williams' 1968 song "Long Time Blues"; the arrangement and performance of this coda echo the arrangement and performance of the titular line in Williams' song nearly perfectly. Additionally, the coda appears after the song has already resolved to a nice conclusion, which invites speculation regarding whether the "Silver Hammer Man" coda was perhaps a nod to (or a tease on) Williams.

In the film Let It Be, McCartney attempts to teach the song to the rest of the band, who are clearly less than enthusiastic. McCartney can be heard sniggering at 1:21 as he sings the line "... writing fifty times I must not be so ..." on the studio recording. This is often rumored to be because as McCartney sang the line "so he waits behind," Lennon mooned McCartney from the control room.

Meaning

Although thought by many fans to be a thinly-veiled allegory on the Charles Manson murders, this is impossible, because the Tate-La Bianca murders occurred on August 8 and 9 1969, after the song was recorded. A homicidal cult is believed however to have used this name in the 1970s, and claimed the lives of five campers in Santa Barbara, California. This is mentioned by the Manson family.

The song may also be a warning about the dangers of dabbling with the powers of 'pataphysics.

McCartney said in 1994 that it merely epitomizes the downfalls of life:

"Maxwell's Silver Hammer" is my analogy for when something goes wrong out of the blue, as it so often does, as I was beginning to find out at that time in my life. I wanted something symbolic of that, so to me it was some fictitious character called Maxwell with a silver hammer. I don't know why it was silver, it just sounded better than Maxwell's hammer. It was needed for scanning. We still use that expression now when something unexpected happens."

McCartney referred to the song when talking about his 2005 album Chaos and Creation in the Backyard:

"In the past I may have written tongue-in-cheek, like 'Maxwell's Silver Hammer', and dealt with matters of fate in a kind of comical, parody manner. It just so happens in this batch of songs I would look at these subjects and thought it was good for writing. If it's good enough to take to your psychiatrist, it's good enough to make a song of."

Comedian Patton Oswalt refers to "Maxwell's Silver Hammer" as a euphemism for a hypodermic needle used for injecting the perfect amount of heroin.

The rest of The Beatles

The song took three days of overdubbing because McCartney imagined that it could be a future single. John Lennon later recalled, "he did everything to make it into a single, and it never was and it never could have been." According to Lennon, the band spent more money on that song than any other on Abbey Road, and he derided the song at the time as a prime example of McCartney's "granny-style" writing.

George Harrison described it in 1969 as "one of those instant whistle-along tunes which some people hate, and other people really like. It's a fun song, but it's kind of a drag because Maxwell keeps on destroying everyone like his girlfriend then the school teacher, and then, finally, the judge." In 1977, Harrison would be less charitable, stating "I mean, my God, 'Maxwell's Silver Hammer' was so fruity."

Even Ringo Starr recalled in an interview in early 2008: "The worst session ever was 'Maxwell's Silver Hammer.' It was the worst track we ever had to record. It went on for fucking weeks. I thought it was mad."

Personnel

• Paul McCartney: lead and backing vocal; lead guitar; piano and Moog IIIp.
• John Lennon: backing vocal; Fender VI six-string bass and acoustic guitar.
• George Harrison: backing vocal and electric guitar.
• Ringo Starr: backing vocal and drums.
• Mal Evans: Anvil?

(In the Beatles film Let It Be, Mal Evans is seen hitting the anvil as the Beatles play the track. It's unknown exactly who played the anvil on the final recording.)

Credits per Ian MacDonald and per Andy Babiuk

Cover versions

In the 1978 film Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, the song is performed by comedian Steve Martin, who portrays the character Maxwell Edison. Frankie Laine also covered the song, as part of the musical documentary All This and World War II, which featured stock and newsreel footage of the Second World War, set to performances of music by The Beatles. Child star Jack Wild recorded a version of this song for his first studio album "The Jack Wild Album".

Cultural References

• The online game Kingdom of Loathing includes a melee weapon named Maxwell's Silver Hammer.
• Actual cartoon from the song which was used in the Abbey Road launch, Late Night Line Up BBC 2, can be seen at this link. Phil Jenkinson, the rock pop video pioneer, made the barber shop quartet dance to the song Maxwell's Silver Hammer.[1]
• In the popular computer game Deus Ex, a datacube found in the MJ12 sewer base is addressed to one "Lt. Maxwell Hammer".
• In the cartoon series Gargoyles, at a Quarryman meeting (note: the Quarrymen were a precursor to The Beatles), the chairman recommends that Maxwell be awarded a silver hammer.
• Maxwell's full name according to the song is "Maxwell Edison", surnames of a mathematician/physicist and inventor respectively.
• In the 2007 film, Across The Universe, in which most characters are named after lyrics in Beatles songs, a principal character named Max is a Princeton student (although not necessarily majoring in medicine), is repeatedly described as mentally unstable and in one scene is noisily battering a fan with a hammer. At the family Thanksgiving dinner, Max is called Maxwell by his Uncle Teddy. Maxwell and Lucy's surname in the film is Carrigan. When Maxwell and Jude meet Sadie (Dana Fuchs) for the first time, she says, "You look clean cut, but then again you could have murdered your granny with a hammer."
• In the Beta version of Mythos, a free to play online RPG, there is an item called "Maxwell's Silver Hammer". It is thought that the item's name has a double meaning, both relating to the Beatle's song of the same name, and to Max Schaefer, one of the founding members of Flagship Studios. In Diablo II, another strong melee hammer was attributed to him called Schaefer's Hammer.

References

• The Beatles Ultimate Experience Database
• Turner, Steve. A Hard Day's Write: The Stories Behind Every Beatles' Song, Harper, New York: 1994, ISBN 0-06-095065-X
• Lewisohn, Mark. The Complete Beatles Recording Sessions, Hamlyn, 1988. ISBN 0-681-03189-1.
• Joe Orton Diaries Published 1986 - methuen