In the studio
‘Maxwell’s Silver Hammer’ was recorded over three days while John Lennon and Yoko Ono were recuperating from a car accident sustained in Scotland. However, they both attended the Abbey Road sessions.
That’s Paul’s. I hate it. ’Cuz 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 he 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. I think.
All We Are Saying, David Sheff
Lennon’s assessment, however, is somewhat misleading; the song took just three sessions to record, plus a Moog overdub done alone by Paul McCartney some days later. Additionally, it lacked the expensive orchestral overdubs that adorned several of the other Abbey Road songs.
They got annoyed because ‘Maxwell’s Silver Hammer’ took three days to record. Big deal.
Anthology
The recording began on 9 July 1969. McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr recorded 16 takes of the basic track, which were numbered 1-21 – there were no takes 6-10.
The 16 takes had Harrison’s bass guitar recorded onto track one; Starr’s drums on track two; McCartney’s piano on track three; and his vocals on track eight.
Take five, recorded on that day, was preserved on the Anthology 3 album, revealing how the song sounded at this early stage. McCartney sings and plays piano, with Harrison on bass guitar and Starr on drums. Take 12, meanwhile, was included on some formats of the 50th anniversary reissue of Abbey Road.
The Beatles selected the final attempt, take 21, as the best, and spent over two hours overdubbing guitars during the first session.
On 10 July McCartney added more piano, George Martin played Hammond organ, Starr banged an anvil, and Harrison recorded a guitar part, fed through a rotating Leslie speaker. McCartney also taped more lead vocals, and was joined by Harrison and Starr for backing vocals.
There was a proper blacksmith’s anvil brought to the studio for Ringo to hit. They had it rented from a theatrical agency.
More guitar and vocals were added on 11 July. At this stage the eight-track tape had bass guitar on track one; drums on two; piano on three; guitars on four and five; the anvil in verse one, McCartney’s vocals in the chorus, piano arpeggios before the later verses, vocal harmonies and the backing vocals in the line “Maxwell must go free” on six; organ, anvil in verses two and three, and more lead and harmony vocals by McCartney on track seven; and McCartney’s re-recorded lead vocals on eight.
The final words, “Silver hammer, man” featured McCartney, Harrison and Starr on vocals. They sang the higher notes onto track six, the lower notes on seven, and a mixture of the two on eight.
‘Maxwell’s Silver Hammer’ was finally completed on 6 August, when McCartney recorded his Moog synthesiser solo. Prior to this a number of reduction mixes were made to free up space on the tape, and combined tracks six and seven. The best of the mixes became known as take 27, and was subjected to further overdubs.
We put together quite a nice album, and the only arguments were about things like me spending three days on ‘Maxwell’s Silver Hammer’. I remember George saying, ‘You’ve taken three days, it’s only a song.’ – ‘Yeah, but I want to get it right. I’ve got some thoughts on this one.’ It was early-days Moog work and it did take a bit of time.
Anthology
McCartney recorded the Moog onto tracks four, five and six.
Paul did Maxwell using the ribbon, playing it like a violin and having to find every note, which is a credit to his musical ability.
EMI engineer
Lennon’s assessment, however, is somewhat misleading
Unless John was referring to the practice sessions earlier in the year, then that’s an understatement ! John so often exhibited, what a mate of mine used to describe as “Long stomach, short memory.” In other words, happy when a particular thing is in your favour and works for you, savage when exactly the same thing is applied to someone else, but you don’t like it. A bit like how he grizzled about Paul doing “Why Don’t We Do it in the Road” alone {he didn’t. Ringo played on it} and then being asked if he’d ever done this as a Beatle and replying that he hadn’t. And then the next question asked is about “Julia,” which he did on his own ! Or accusing Paul of sabotaging a great song {Across the Universe, Strawberry Fields Forever} and going into a big thing about it, then saying as an aside that they all did it, but Paul did it more ! I mean, if they all did it, then by sheer logic they’ve all forfeited the right to complain if one of the others did it !
And when one considers that “Not Guilty” took 102 takes and still didn’t make it onto the White album, or the time spent on “While My Guitar Gently Weeps,” or that “Strawberry Fields Forever” took an at the time, unprecedented 55 hours of studio time, including 2 re-makes and eventual edit of two of the takes, or the number of takes “Happiness is a Warm Gun” required, or the remade songs like “Sexy Sadie” and “Revolution,” or “You Know My name” taking two years, one has to ask what John’s problem was.
OMG! I had no idea, so it was just the fact that it was Paul’s song! Paul has never complained about the amount of time it took to make all those other songs. This whole thing is sounding very one sided against McCartney.
I saw an interview with one of the members of Badfinger. He was saying how, when George was producing one of their songs, he would tell them exactly how to play their parts and how to sing the harmonies and would make them do it over and over for hours until George was satisfied. This is exactly what he was complaining Paul would do to him! What a hypocrite!
That’s what a producer does. If Paul had treated the other three like bandmates instead of session players, the song would probably have been more fun.
I think it would have been nice if Ringo (not Paul) sang lead vocals on Maxwell’s Silver Hammer and Ob-Li-Di Ob-La-Da. Perhaps these two “fruity” songs would have been more acceptable to the other Beatles if Ringo sang them, as these are more similar in tone to Ringo songs like Octopus’s Garden and Yellow Submarine.
I think the other 3 were so disparaging mostly because they just hated the song. If you hate a song, then it’s going to seem more arduous working on it and seem “longer” to record. I get it, because it’s one of McCartney’s most vacuous lyrics about a homicidal maniac, one of McCartney’s worst.
Ringo’s quote just makes me love Maxwell’s Silver Hammer even more:
” The worst session ever was ‘Maxwell’s Silver Hammer’. It was the worst track we ever had to record. It went on for f*****g weeks. I thought it was mad.”
Ringo Starr
Rolling Stone, January 2008
When someone who’s got talent gets a goofed-out off-the-planet idea, instead of colleagues complaining, and fighting it, it’s usually better to run with it, or bands like Pink Floyd would never have done anything worth noticing, Ziggy’s Spiders would’ve had no web, And Hawkwind’s Silver Machine would have just been a rusty washin machine..