By the end of the group’s history, The Beatles were looking in different directions and often didn’t see eye to eye on many decisions.
But there was one thing that John Lennon, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr agreed upon: their complete and utter disdain for ‘Maxwell’s Silver Hammer’.
Penned by Paul McCartney and released on the band’s 1969 last record Abbey Road, ‘Maxwell’s Silver Hammer’ was intended as a quirky, music hall-style piece.
Instead, it became symbolic of the creative divide between the members, an upbeat ballad that, according to everyone except McCartney himself, nearly broke the band’s collective spirit. The worst session ever was ‘Maxwell’s Silver Hammer’”, Ringo Starr recalled in a 2008 interview with Rolling Stone. “It was the worst track we ever had to record. It went on for fucking weeks. I thought it was mad.”
The band’s context, by that point, was tense. By the time they entered Abbey Road Studios to record the Abbey Road album, John Lennon had become increasingly disengaged, George Harrison had strong material – like ‘Here Comes the Sun’ and ‘Something’ – and Ringo was reportedly worn thin from the emotional whiplash.
Amidst the chaos, McCartney resurrected the dreaded track, which he had written during the White Album sessions. ‘Maxwell’s Silver Hammer’ features dark lyrics about a student who murders people with a hammer, wrapped in a cheerful, happy melody. For Paul, it was exciting, but the rest of the band didn’t seem to agree.
“I hated it,” John Lennon told Playboy in 1980. “All I remember is the track – he made us do it a hundred million times.”
“He did everything to make it into a single and it never was and it never could’ve been. But [Paul] put guitar licks on it, and he had somebody hitting iron pieces, and we spent more money on that song than any of them in the whole album.”
Paul’s perfectionism around the track consumed hours in the studio, which Lennon and Harrison believed would’ve been better spent on other material.
Harrison also had his say about the nightmarish sessions: “Sometimes Paul would make us do these really fruity songs” Harrison told Crawdaddy in 1976. “I mean, my God, Maxwell’s Silver Hammer was so fruity.”
“After a while we did a good job on it, but when Paul got an idea or an arrangement in his head…”, he reminisced.
Even McCartney later acknowledged the tension Maxwell’s Silver Hammer caused, when interviewed by Barry Miles in Many Years From Now: “They got annoyed because ‘Maxwell’s Silver Hammer’ took three days to record”.
He still stood for it, though: “It was the best radio play I had ever heard in my life, and the best production. That was one of the big things of the period for me”.
McCartney also boasted that he was “the only person who ever put the name of pataphysics into the record charts”, saying: “It was great. I love those surreal little touches.”