"Maxwell's Silver Hammer" Song By The Beatles. The In-depth Story ...

Songwriting History

"'Maxwell's Silver Hammer' was 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," Paul writes in his book "Many Years From Now." He continues: "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 even now when something unexpected happens." In his 2021 book "The Lyrics," Paul adds: "The thing about Maxwell is that he's a serial killer, and his hammer isn't an ordinary household hammer but, as I envision it, one that doctors use to hit your knee. Not made of rubber, though. Silver...This song is also an analogy for when something goes wrong out of the blue, as I was beginning to find happening around this time in our business dealings." Former Apple employee Tony King expands on the song's meaning a little further in Steve Turner's book “A Hard Day's Write,” by relating a conversation he had with John Lennon concerning his song “Instant Karma.” “John told me that 'Maxwell's Silver Hammer' was about the law of karma. We were talking one day about 'Instant Karma' because something had happened where he's been clobbered and he'd said that this was an example of instant karma. I asked him whether he believed that theory. He said that he did and that 'Maxwell's Silver Hammer' was the first song that they'd made about that. He said that the idea behind the song was that the minute you do something that's not right, Maxwell's silver hammer will come down on your head.” “The song epitomizes the downfalls of life,” Paul explains in the “Beatles Anthology” book. "Just when everything is going smoothly – 'Bang! Bang!' - down comes Maxwell's silver hammer and ruins everything." In order to incorporate the instant karma theme, Paul needed to concoct a story for the song. “Some of my songs are based on personal experience, but my style is to veil it,” Paul continues in the “Anthology” book. “A lot of them are made up, like 'Maxwell's Silver Hammer' which is the kind of song I like to write. It's just a silly story about all these people I'd never met. It's just like writing a play: you don't have to know the people, you just make them up. I remember George once saying to me, 'I couldn't write songs like that.' He writes more from personal experience. John's style was to show the naked truth. If I was painter, I'd probably mask things a little bit more than some people.” A good example of masking, or veiling, contained within the premise of “Maxwell's Silver Hammer” is found within its very first line, a reference to “Pataphisics.” This was a word invented by French dramatist Alfred Jarry, the French pioneer of absurd theater from the turn of the century, to describe a branch of metaphysics. Paul became interested in the works of Alfred Jarry on January 10th, 1966 when, while driving from London to Liverpool, he heard a re-broadcast on BBC Radio 3 of one of his plays, “Ubu Cocu,” on BBC radio. "Zooming up the motorway from London to Liverpool in (my) Aston Martin, I fiddled around on the radio for something and happened on a BBC Radio 3 production of 'Ubu Cocu,'" Paul remembers in his 2021 book "The Lyrics." “It was the best radio play I had ever heard in my life,” Paul relates in “Many Years From Now,” “and the best production, and Ubu was so brilliantly played. It was just a sensation. That was one of the big things of the period for me.” (As a sidenote, Paul incorporated the name of this play to a 90's radio show of his own which he called “Oobu Joobu.”) Then a few months later, in July of 1966, the Royal Court Theatre in London put on a production of a related Alfred Jarry play entitled “Ubu Roi,” which Paul attended. This was the better-known play by Alfred Jarry, subtitled "a pataphysical extravaganza," "'Pataphysical' (being) a nonsense word Jarry made up to poke fun at toffee-nosed academics," Paul explained in "The Lyrics." The lead actor cast for this play was Max Wall, a veteran vaudevillian whom Jane Asher, Paul's girlfriend, particularly liked in this role. Paul continued to immerse himself in the writings of Alfred Jarry, especially the “science” created by him that Jarry termed “pataphysics,” which some describe as the science of imaginary solutions. “I put that in one of the Beatles songs,” Paul continues, referring to “Maxwell's Silver Hammer.” “'Joan was quizzical, studied 'pataphysical science in the home...' Nobody knows what it means; I only explained it to Linda just the other day. That's the lovely thing about it. I am the only person who ever put the name of 'pataphysics' into the record charts, c'mon! It was great. I love those surreal little touches. That was the big difference between me and John: whereas John shouted it from the rooftops, I often just whispered it in the drawing room, thinking that was enough." In "The Lyrics," Paul adds: "I liked that people wouldn't necessarily know what 'pataphysical' was, so I was being a little bit obscure on purpose." One can easily speculate, given these circumstances, that Paul equated “Pataphysics,” or “the science of imaginary solutions,” with what John described as “Instant Karma”: the moment you think things are going perfectly for you, that you feel invincible, a sudden disaster is the “solution” of bringing you back down to earth, a blow to the ego as a reminder of your humanity. And as far as speculation goes, could actor Max Wall playing the lead role of King Ubu in the Alfred Jarry play that Paul attended in July of 1966 influenced the main character in his song being named “Maxwell,” even if only subconsciously? In his book "The Lyrics," Paul speculates differently: "Maxwell is possibly a descendant of James Clerk Maxwell, who was a pioneer of electromagnetism. Edision is obviously related to Thomas Edison. They're two inventor types." Ah, the wonderful fun of speculation! Nonetheless, the dark comedy contained in the lyrics is obvious. George, when describing the song shortly after its release, calls our attention to this: “It's a 'Honey Pie' sort of fun thing, but this is pretty sick, because the guy keeps killing everybody...It's kind of a drag because Maxwell keeps destroying everyone, like his girlfriend, the school teacher, and then, finally, the judge.” George also described the song that year 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 sick, because Maxwell keeps on killing everyone." During January 1969 rehearsals of the song at Twickenham Film Studios, Paul explained that Maxwell "would be very scholarly; just very straight in a striped tie and a blazer." Ian MacDonald, in his book “Revolution In The Head,” describes the song as “the cheery tale of a homicidal maniac,” adding that it “represents by far (Paul's) worst lapse of taste under the auspices of The Beatles.” Then again, if you like the dark British humor of, say, “Monty Python's Flying Circus,” whose very first episode aired simultaneously with the release of the “Abbey Road” album in Britain, the fact that the unlikely hero in Paul's song is a murderer while the music lends itself to a children's song fits in nicely with what was deemed funny at the time. In "The Lyrics," Paul writes: "Also invoked is the world of the children's nursery thyme, where people are always getting their heads chopped off - and of course, there's also the 'Queen Of Hearts' from 'Alice's Adventures In Wonderland,' who's always saying, 'Off with their heads!' Ian Brady and Myra Hindley, the Moors murderers, had been jailed for life in 1966 for committing serial mruders. That case was quite likely in my mind, as it was front page news in the UK." In fact, regarding inappropriate humor, during the rehearsals of "Maxwell's Silver Hammer" at Twickenham Studios in January of 1969, Paul described the song by saying, "It's like Tom Lehrer, that one." Satirist and Harvard lecturer Tom Lehrer, most noted for his popular 1965 album "That Was The Year That Was," specialized in topical and sometimes dark subject matter within the framework of older music styles. For example, one of his earlier compositions, "Poisoning Pigeons In The Park," contains lyrics that refer to a method used by the United States Fish and Wildlife Service of killing pigeons in Boston by feeding them strychrine-treated corn. With this as a reference, lyrically as well as musically, murdering people with a silver hammer is not too far removed! As to the time of writing, the November 1968 issue of “The Beatles Book” magazine reported that “Maxwell's Silver Hammer” was an existing song that had not been recorded in time for inclusion on the “White Album,” which was released that month. To be more precise, Paul included the first verse of this song, up to and including the lyric "Let me take you out to the pictures Jo-o-o-oan," in a notebook he had taken to India during their trip there to study Transendental Meditation with the Maharishi. On an opening page of the notebook he wrote, "Spring Songs, Rishikesh 1968," which would indicate that he began writing the song during his stay in India, this being between March and May of that year. When Paul introduced the song to The Beatles in January of 1969 during the “Get Back / Let It Be” sessions, he had written a little more of the song by then, the chorus and a verse-and-a-half being heard during these rehearsals. We do know, however, that all the lyrics were in place when Paul recorded the lead vocals for the song on July 10th, 1969. His notebook also includes the more detailed composition of the lyrics for this song, as seen above. Since many of these lyrics weren't included in the filmed Twickenham sessions of early January 1969, the writings in his notebook must have been added to in the following months, a glued insert even being added to the notebook at some point. Interestingly, changes were also made afterward, this notebook conting lyrics such as a crossed out "how can she avoid him a third time" and then "how can she avoid an unpleasant scene" instead of the finished "wishing to avoid an unpleasant scene." Another crossed out phrase was "and as she turns her back to the board" being replaced by "but when she turns her back on the boy." When asked by Playboy magazine in 1980 if he had any part in writing the song, John replied, “That's Paul. I hate it,” another time calling it “a typical McCartney single, or whatever,” and yet another time “more of Paul's granny music.” So I guess it's safe to say that this is entirely a McCartney composition, wouldn't you think?