Help me make peace with "Maxwell's Silver Hammer"

Discussion in 'Music Corner' started by John Porcellino, Mar 9, 2018.

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  1. bzfgt

    bzfgt The Grand High Exalted Mystic Ruler

    Yeah, but you suckered me into that one--you knew it was coming and you were laying for me!
     
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  2. bzfgt

    bzfgt The Grand High Exalted Mystic Ruler

    This is wild--as I was reading this post Youtube auto-flipped me into "I Want You" covered by Robyn Hitchcock--I didn't know it was coming or even that it existed. It kind of blew my mind because for a second I was taking it for granted, reading about the song and hearing it...then, what?!
     
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  3. bzfgt

    bzfgt The Grand High Exalted Mystic Ruler

    It even has a really good comment under it:


    Phillip Glavaris10 months ago (edited)
    you know I wonder about the binary code that lays on the road there, that nobody cares to notice... Special helper.. lol oh come together was about #Frank Sinatra also Benjamin Franklin was for the benefit of Mr kit........ and Sgt peppers cover was about the Resurrection.....

    (Unfortunately it's probably just a joke...)
     
  4. RBtl

    RBtl Forum Resident

    Location:
    Toronto, Ontario
    I may have to try that out - I Want You (She's So Heavy) followed immediately by 21st Century Schizoid Man without a split second of silence would be quite interesting.
     
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  5. dance_hall_keeper

    dance_hall_keeper Forum Resident

    I wonder if the receipt for the rental of the original anvil still exists.
     
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  6. Rfreeman

    Rfreeman Senior Member

    Location:
    Lawrenceville, NJ
    Better song than I Want You (She's So Heavy). Maybe if you spliced a repetitive guitar solo over 95% or the words and looped it twice you would like it better.
     
    Last edited: Mar 10, 2018
  7. Rfreeman

    Rfreeman Senior Member

    Location:
    Lawrenceville, NJ
    A very sophisticated composition for a rock band. It is just short as it doesn't have many repeats.
     
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  8. Chrome_Head

    Chrome_Head Planetary Resident

    Location:
    Los Angeles, CA.
    I remember trying to get my head around the Beatles early on, as a young teen, and listening to my Dad's '87 Abbey Road CD. I still think about "Maxwell's" now pretty much the same as I did then--it's a quirky, skippable, somewhat clever pop song that seems generally meaningless. I've come to appreciate it a bit more over the years, but only just.

    There's a hell of a lot more soul in "I Want You" then in Paul's often cutesy pop prancing on some of his Abbey songs. In my opinion, of course.
     
  9. Folknik

    Folknik Forum Resident

    I always liked "Maxwell's Silver Hammer" (nice synth and piano break), and I like all of Paul's old time music hall songs, but initially found the serial killer gallows humor a bit disturbing (As an incurable romantic, I hate it when the bad guy wins). Then I read an interview in which Paul said it was an allegory about when life seems to be going along normally and then these surprising misfortunes and irritations sneak up behind you and get you. It makes sense in that context.

    As for "Mr. Moonlight", I love the live version on the Star Club album where John sings "Here I am on my nose."
     
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  10. HfxBob

    HfxBob Forum Resident

    Could you possibly compare two more dissimilar songs?
     
  11. Folknik

    Folknik Forum Resident

    I get that, but where's Maxwell's karma. (Or is there no karma for karma itself?)
     
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  12. Folknik

    Folknik Forum Resident

    "Octopus's Garden" is a very nice children's song, like "Yellow Submarine."
     
  13. Folknik

    Folknik Forum Resident

    The ONLY half decent lyric in their catalog? "Eleanor Rigby" stands up alongside the character sketches of Edwin Arlington Robinson. As for most of their songs expressing "juvenile ideas in a juvenile manner", I'm guessing that you mean that many of them are love songs, like most of the lyrics of Cole Porter and Lorenz Hart.
     
  14. Paulette

    Paulette Forum Resident

    Bluntly: lighten up. Do do do do do do....
     
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  15. konajinx

    konajinx Forum Resident

    I liked it from the first time I heard it.

    Mr. Moonlight is wretched, however.
     
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  16. Craigman1959

    Craigman1959 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Alabama, USA
    I've always liked Maxwell. Without it Steve Martin wouldn't have had his scene in the Sgt Pepper movie. Mr Moonlight took me years to appreciate.
     
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  17. Terrapin Station

    Terrapin Station Master Guns

    Location:
    NYC Man/Joy-Z City
    There are Crimson influences in the other parts too, though. There's a lot of unusual phrasing throughout the tune, the way phrases are extended, the way they're contrasted with unexpected instrumental bits that are composed in (very brief) sectional manners, etc. (which is part of what I meant by the tune almost being prog in miniature). And there's a Crimson-like feel to those instrumental contrasts, too. There are a lot of aspects of it that I could describe in music-theoretical detail (I'm describing it in a much more loose, abstract way here).
     
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  18. ShockControl

    ShockControl Bon Vivant and Raconteur!

    Location:
    Lotus Land
    OK, I was exaggerating. Lyrics were never the Beatles' strong suit.

    Love songs can be sophisticated or juvenile.
     
  19. adm62

    adm62 Senior Member

    Location:
    Ottawa, Canada
    You can't criticize it? I think you can.

    I don't love Rocky Raccoon either
     
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  20. Terrapin Station

    Terrapin Station Master Guns

    Location:
    NYC Man/Joy-Z City
    Yeah, no karma for karma itself. If reading it to be about karma, Maxwell would be the personification of it, and in the scenarios we're given, karma makes itself apparent negatively, again probably not to literally suggest that the people in question are due negative karma so much as the fact that such an abrupt, shocking change of course nails home--so to speak--how significantly and unexpectedly karma can alter things.
     
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  21. funkydrummer

    funkydrummer Forum Resident

    Ok having perused the comments, I will dare post this:
    Even as a hardcore Beatles fan, I have never really made peace with Abbey Road as an album.
    Abbey Road to me has always kind of been "mutton dressed up as lamb" - leftovers from LIB and scraps whipped into the "medley" - trying to disguise a generally AWOL JL and his lack of material - squeezing out George (who makes the album) and really pound for pound I think there are more classics on LIB...
    Maxwell is part of my issue with it - it is forced, contrived and while as Beatles fan I love it all - I really don't care for the fact that it is a music hall serial killer song which is not really that funny or ironic. I do love the arrangement, and use of Moog etc - and at the end of the day I love the fabs - but when people say Abbey Road is their best album, I just don't get it. As others have said having Maxwell, Octopus Garden, and I Want You on side 1 (even though I love I Want You) - well none of them are top shelf compositions...poor George must have been well pissed off when he had all those compositions and JL is submitting 12 bar blues or old song scraps from 1968...and then side 2 is "stuff we couldn't be bothered finishing - so we made it a medley"...
     
    Last edited: Mar 10, 2018
  22. mark winstanley

    mark winstanley Certified dinosaur, who likes physical product

    i think the beatles covered so much ground musically between rubber soul and the white album that they got a little lost. i think that's why they decided to go back to basics for let it be. i think abbey road is a great album with a good variance of songs on it. i also notice that post beatles the individual albums tended to stay more traditional and less experimental.
    the beatles had often done some novelty songs during their career and maxwell is probably one of the darkest novelty songs ever, but it is dressed in a sweet little childlike melody and structure.
     
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  23. adm62

    adm62 Senior Member

    Location:
    Ottawa, Canada
    Correct. Side 1 is one of their weakest sides and while side 2 is great, it is mainly brilliant production and playing masking half finished ditties.
     
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  24. ShockControl

    ShockControl Bon Vivant and Raconteur!

    Location:
    Lotus Land
    It is the only time they self-consciously made a "Beatles" album.
     
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  25. Benno123

    Benno123 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Ohio
    Threads like this just serve as a reminder that it’s always different strokes for different folks. What is one person’s trash is another’s treasure. I enjoy the track but then again I don’t spend my time analyzing ever word and note of every song I ever hear, either.
     
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