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"Whether you are one of an oppressed minority or a Fab Four fan finally figuring out that your sacred cow has been milked for long enough. I hope these words will be of some encouragement to you." – Gary Hall

To get the full benefit from this chapter you will need to locate the following: a quiet room, which you can lock from the inside, a mirror, a hi-fi system, a good quality set of stereo headphones and a recording of the Beatles’ song ‘Maxwell’s Silver Hammer’. You’ll find the song nestled away on the Abbey Road album. How you choose to obtain your copy, I shall leave to your discretion.

If you’ve managed to read and absorb the teachings offered thus far in this book, I feel that you are now ready to embark upon your rites of passage ceremony. This will involve you listening to the song ‘Maxwell’s Silver Hammer’ from start to finish at a very loud volume through headphones. Only when you fully embrace your rites of passage by scrutinizing every single fault line in this song in close detail, will you truly be able to appreciate how vindicated you will be to continue with your struggle for survival in this Fab Four friendly world in which we dwell.

Before we begin, it is absolutely imperative that you keep the following three facts at the forefront of your mind for the entire duration of this exercise:

1. The album Abbey Road without the song ‘Maxwell’s Silver Hammer’ would still be over forty-four minutes long (a perfectly respectable length for any album released in the late 1960s).
2. In the same year that the Abbey Road album was released, the Rolling Stones released Let it Bleed, Townes Van Zandt released Our Mother the Mountain, Miles Davis released In a Silent Way, Nick Drake released Five Leaves Left, The Band released their classic second eponymous album and Creedence Clearwater Revival released not one, but three albums: Green River, Bayou Country and Willy and the Poor Boys.
3. The Beatles have sold in excess of one billion records (and that does not include the copies Mr Epstein was responsible for purchasing early on in their career to give the lads a helping hand).

Ok, now press play. What you are about to hear will not be pleasant. However, the louder you can stand to have the volume in your headphones now, the more determined you will be to resist the enticement of finding favour with any strain of Fab Four faction in the future. So, go on, be brave, pump up the volume.

The first thing to do is direct your attention to the chord sequence taking place and ask yourself how five relatively harmless chords, D, B7, Em, A7 and E7, can possibly sound so offensive in the hands of the Fab Four? Apart from what sounds like an F# Dim that appears briefly before the chorus rears its ugly head each time, it's just those same five innocent chords that you’ll hear being repeatedly abused throughout the song.

Next, it’s time to get yourself geographically acquainted with the track. So, if your headphones are on correctly, you should be able to hear some banging to the right. That’s Ringo (bless him) playing his drums, or so we’re led to believe. To the left you should be able to hear a bass guitar and piano drudging along, whilst in the middle of the stereo picture you ought to be able to hear the dulcet vocal tones of our old mate, Macca. Pay close attention to the drum, bass and piano pattern that’s starting to emerge and envisage how it would lend perfect musical accompaniment to a Chas and Dave recording, or blend effortlessly with Mrs Mills on a Saturday night down at the Old Bull and Bush.

During the first verse you will hear Paul singing the word ‘oh’ four times in a row after the line about Joan being home alone. Then, just as we’re about to embark on the first chorus, you will hear him stretch the word ‘Joan’ over four syllables, again to fit in with the song’s crude vocal line, just as he did a few lines back with the word ‘oh’. He’s at it again in verse two, stretching those one syllable words ‘scene’ and ‘so’ into four syllable words, and it’s exactly the same story in verse three with the words ‘oh’ and ‘so’.

Now, I don’t know about you, but I was always led to believe that it was the duty of a good songwriter to tell the story, set the scene and create the mood in a song as quickly as possible by using as few words as possible, but making each and every one count. For example, if you were to tell someone ‘I do like you’ ten times (forty syllables), that would have far less effect on that person than if you were to say ‘I do love you’ just the once (four syllables). However, it would appear that on this particular occasion our Paul has paid scant regard to his song writing duties. Just think of the things you could articulate to someone using only four syllables: ‘Let’s get married’; ‘I’ve won the pools’; ‘It’s contagious’; ‘Run, it’s the cops’; ‘I’m leaving you’. The list is endless. Four syllables could change your life, and the lives of others, forever. But, what’s really disturbing about this particular song is that if you were to add all the wasted syllables together (i.e. 4 wasted syllables x 1 word x 2 words per verse x 3 verses), you would accumulate twenty-four wasted syllables—and all in a song lasting only three minutes and twenty-five seconds. Now, think of all the great lines of lyrics you’ve heard that have been written by much less celebrated songwriters that use twenty-four syllables or fewer! (Once your rite of passage is complete, this can be a very enjoyable game to play in the future to help melt away the miles on long journeys.)

All right, before we begin to suffer the first chorus, I suppose we need to try and make some sense of the story line so far. Apparently, Maxwell Edison, who’s majoring in medicine, has invited a quizzical lady called Joan, who works from home studying pataphysical science, to the cinema. Curiously enough, I had never heard of pataphysical science before. In fact, I couldn’t find it in any dictionary. Maybe Sir Paul just invented the word pataphysical for the sole purpose of rhyming with the word quizzical (surely not…he wouldn’t…would he?). Or, it could be that he’s referring to the branch of philosophy that deals with imaginary solutions invented by the French absurdist Alfred Jarry…pataphysics…who knows. But even if that were the case, and he really was referring to a form of philosophy, why would the line that immediately follows it talk about Joan being tired of her endless nights at home staying in with a test tube? (I must confess, I’ve racked my brains and I still can’t think of any reason why people studying philosophy would require a test tube as part of their studies…can you?) Anyway, let’s not get side tracked. It appears that Joan was obviously prepared to accept Maxwell’s kind offer because during the last line of verse one the song tells of Joan getting ready to go out. And although not one hundred percent clear to the listener as to where or with whom, one would assume with a little detective work, to the cinema with Maxwell Edison. Ok, is it making sense so far? Good, then let’s move on to the first chorus, shall we?

Listen out for a loud banging when Paul sings the words ‘bang bang’, and again a few lines later when the sly old fox very cunningly changes the words ‘bang bang’ to ‘clang clang’. Those loud bangs that you can hear are the Beatles’ roadie, Mal Evans, hitting an anvil, and they have been placed at strategic points throughout the song to emphasise to the listener that banging is taking place in the storyline at that particular moment. I should imagine it’s probably subtle, tasteful touches like this that over the years have helped the Beatles to acquire their long-standing, never fading, seldom questioned, reputation as geniuses.

Ok, let’s review what’s going on lyrically during the first chorus, shall we, so we don’t lose our thread. It appears that as Joan’s getting ready for her big night out, Maxwell knocks at her door and then proceeds to beat the living shit out of her with his silver hammer, until she’s no longer in the land of the living. (A fine way to start the evening, I must say.) As yet, there appears to be no hint of a motive, or indeed any clues as to where Maxwell has managed to obtain a silver hammer. Still, let’s be patient, we’re only just over a quarter of the way through the song.

Righty ho, this next bit’s going to hurt, but there’s no way round it, I’m afraid. This is a little turnaround section that’s been designed to take the listener smoothly from the first chorus into the second verse. It sounds like the theme tune to an early 70’s Dutch TV programme for 6 to 8 year olds that only survived one series. But the upside is that it only lasts a little over ten seconds, so keep those hands of yours away from that stop button and try to remain relaxed, it will soon be verse two.

The only musical developments to occur in verse two are a vile whining noise in the background that sounds like the Clangers deep in conversation, and an occasional spurt of uninspired electric guitar turning up here and there. What we need to do now, I suppose, is to get back to the storyline and see how that’s developing.

Maxwell’s evidently not a prime suspect yet in the Joan murder investigation because by verse two he’s still roaming free and is back at school again, continuing to play the fool again, which appears to be annoying the hell out of his teacher. So much so in fact, that she has decided to keep Maxwell behind after class to write out fifty lines, her reasoning presumably being that this is the best solution when dealing with unruly students to deter further unruly behaviour. Now, if I, like Maxwell, were majoring in medicine, and were perhaps close even to finding a cure for a rare form of cancer, or were conducting some ground breaking exploration into motor neurone disease, say as part of my PhD research, I would find teacher’s proposal of having to stay behind after class to write out fifty lines both patronising and counter productive—wouldn’t you?

However, it’s the next bit that always confuses me more than any other part of the entire song. If we’re to believe our novice narrator, the line that teacher has allegedly asked Maxwell to write out fifty times is—now, are you ready for this—he must not be so oh oh oh oh. What the fuck does that mean? How can anyone possibly not be so oh oh oh oh, or even be so oh oh oh oh for that matter? It just doesn’t make any sense. Look, as much as I deplore violence, especially against women, I do feel that teacher’s crime compared with that of Joan, who merely accepted an invitation from him, should not remain wholly unpunished. But I do feel that death by silver hammer (which we learn from the last line of this verse to be Maxwell’s punishment of choice) is somewhat harsh under the circumstances. However, on a brighter note, once we’ve got this second chorus out of the way, we’ll be over halfway home.

Chorus two. Not much change here musically, apart from the addition of some ill-advised backing vocals, a strummed acoustic guitar, and perhaps one of the worst drum rolls in the history of recorded music that will lead us from chorus two into the guitar solo. (A guitar solo that I feel sure would have had Duane Allman quaking in his boots if he’d ever heard it!) Which is followed by a short piano interlude, a few bars of bass bumbling and then it’s time to sit back and suffer verse three.

No real surprises musically in verse three, apart from some tenth rate Beach Boy style backing vocals that appear after the line about Rose and Valerie up in the gallery. You see, most of the horrors you’ve suffered so far in this song are now out in the open so the repulsive shock element of the first time hearing has now been diminished. There’s not a lot left now that the lads in the Fabs can throw at you. So just try to remain relaxed as we take a look at how the story line is developed in verse three.

It would appear that Maxwell’s days of killing defenceless women with his silver hammer have been brought to an abrupt close because the opening line in verse three tells how a policeman, referred to only as PC31, catches a dirty one. (Thirty-one…dirty one…anyone?) This would lead us to believe that enough evidence has now been gathered against Maxwell to bring him to trial. And a trial does commence, during which, two sad misguided fools, Rose and Valerie, determined to drag women’s rights back into the dark ages, are screaming from the gallery that in their opinion Maxwell should be released. Why? God only knows. Maybe they’re silversmiths. I don’t know. (Can you imagine the grade you’d get if you were told to write a story at junior school and you handed in this shit? They’d make you wear a dunce’s cap and sit you in the corner next to the ‘Beatle Head’ Stuart Flynders.) Anyhow, as the Judge is quite rightly disagreeing with Rose and Valerie, Maxwell, suddenly out of nowhere, manages to break free, get past the guards whilst still armed with his silver hammer (which I personally would have had confiscated the moment he was taken into custody), and somehow get behind the Judge and beat him to death. And although verse three doesn’t in fact inform us as to whether the attack was fatal, it’s chorus three that verifies the judge’s life was brought to a premature end when Paul simply changes the sex of the victim in this chorus from a ‘she’ to a ‘he’ (‘she’ being the subjective pronoun used in the previous choruses when the victims, Joan and Maxwell’s teacher, were female). As to what happened to Maxwell, that’s a question you will have to take up with Sir Paul.

Lyrically at least, that’s where the story ends. If I had been Paul, I may have been tempted to use some of the twenty-four wasted syllables we discussed earlier to clear up a few technical discrepancies in the song, but hey, it’s not my place to tell one of the most celebrated (if not the most celebrated songwriter alive today) how to do his job, is it? And I also don’t think that it would be fair to lay all of the blame at Sir Paul’s feet, although he was clearly the ringleader in all of this. We must remember that there were more than just him involved in the recording of the song. It’s all right for people to sit back and with the benefit of hindsight point the finger only at poor old Paul. But, in my book, as far as I’m concerned, anyone who played a part, no matter how minor in the writing, performing, producing, recording or releasing of this song, is an equal aural assassin accomplice let loose on the listener’s ear.

It’s interesting to note that John was the only Beatle who, quite rightly, refused to play on the song. I think this was quite a clear indication early on, that after the Beatles’ demise he would go on, in a solo capacity, to write a handful of pretty good songs, which of course he did. There being famously, of course, ‘Instant Karma’, ‘Woman’, the one that bloke Brian Tugboat out of Roxy Music recorded, ‘Jealous Guy’, ‘Merry Christmas (War is Over)’, and ‘Working Class Hero’. And not forgetting ‘Mother’ of course, John’s finest song in my opinion. Although I must say, on a performance level, to compare the version of ‘Mother’ that Mellowdrive recorded on their debut album in 2001 to the version recorded by John on his Plastic Ono Band album would be tantamount to comparing Michelangelo’s David to a Blackpool Tower fridge magnet. To be fair to John though, Mellowdrive didn’t have Ringo drumming on their version.

Anyway, back to the less thoughtful members of the band. I’ll tell you what, I’m not a big drug user, never have been, but I’d really love to get my hands on just a teeny bit of what those lads must have been on in Abbey Road when they were laying this track down. Think about it for a moment: how can a song in which the subject matter deals with a fucked-up, mass-murdering misogynist, still on the loose for all we know, come out sounding like a lightweight rendition of ‘Old Macdonald Had a Farm’? It had to be the drugs, I’m telling you. What else could account for such a lapse of taste? It’s not possible to get a bunch of musicians (even ones as unskilled and insensitive to the song as the Beatles were) to make music this inappropriate. It had to be the drugs. I’m just astounded that George Martin or one of the engineers or studio staff didn’t say something at the time.

Ok, time to suffer some more of the song, I’m afraid. As we embark upon the last thirty seconds of your rites of passage, you may start to feel a little emotional (so near and yet so far). I want you to let any anger that you’re feeling inside come to the surface now—it won’t harm you, it’s just an emotion. Try to acknowledge the anger and claim it as your own without letting it affect your relaxed state in any way. Don’t hold back those tears; it’s perfectly natural after what you’ve been through so far to feel this way; let them flow freely.

After chorus three finishes, you will hear some dreadful, unnecessary keyboard of some description which will appear out of nowhere for no rational reason. The second you hear this section begin, let the anger inside you rise to even higher levels by bringing to mind all the great singers, songwriters, musicians and poets you are aware of who died in poverty. And the many who were starved of any recognition for their art during their lifetimes. And then remind yourself that although, to be fair, the vast majority of Beatles’ fans will hang their heads in shame, shuffle their feet and sometimes even apologise if the subject of ‘Maxwell’s Silver Hammer’ should come up whilst you’re ‘having the talk’, there are still some fans out there who would stand before you right now and defend this nonsense that has been filling your headphones like a bad traveller’s sick bag as just a ‘bit of fun’. (I remember a guy I went to school with who shot cats with an air rifle for a ‘bit of fun’. I guess it’s like my Mother always says, ‘it takes all sorts to make the world go round’.)

Ok, as we approach the closing seconds and the uncalled for keyboard makes way for the bombastic choral close, bang on three minutes and twenty-five seconds you will hear two loud clunks (courtesy once again of Mr Percussion Pants himself, Mal Evans). These two clunks signify an end to your rites of passage. Once you hear these clunks, it’s over, and you can relax in the knowledge that music will never sound that bad again—unless of course you’re daft enough to put the song on for a second time.

That’s it, it’s over, congratulations, you’ve completed your rites of passage and survived.

Now allow that weight to be lifted from your shoulders and let the warmth of that long overdue silence wrap itself around you like the arms of an old friend. Look long and hard into the mirror before you and stare deep into those haunted eyes. Then once you’re fully focused, in your own time, begin to make a mental list of all the things you’ve done in your life that you’re now ashamed of. Perhaps you’ve worn a shell suit, line danced, owned a Range Rover whilst residing in a town or city, you may have even furnished that vehicle with private plates, or maybe you’ve appeared on Blind Date, sang karaoke, supported a glamorous northern football club even though you were brought up in the South, you might have even been tempted to vote for the Conservative Party at some stage in your life (all right, I’m being ridiculous now), but seriously, whatever your misdemeanours, let me reassure you, that compared to being in a band who were prepared to put their name to the song ‘Maxwell’s Silver Hammer’ YOU — HAVE — NEVER — STOOPED — THAT — LOW.

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