Speaker 1: Pushkin. Hi, everyone, it's Paul Moldoin. Before we get to
Speaker 1: this episode, I wanted to let you know that you
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Speaker 2: Hi.
Speaker 3: I'm going to be driving up to Liverpool in my
Speaker 3: brand new Aston Martin, going too fast.
Speaker 2: But with the radio, and there was this play that
Speaker 2: caught my ear. Is a shit a pump out of orders?
Speaker 4: You all have you deep brained.
Speaker 2: Ubou cuckoo I was. I really liked it.
Speaker 4: It's not functioning at all, it's broken.
Speaker 2: Down because it was so rebellious.
Speaker 4: What a dirty business like your deep braining machine.
Speaker 2: I just loved this character, Ubu.
Speaker 4: I'm not afraid of that.
Speaker 2: There's nothing like a sewage barrel. I liked hund me
Speaker 2: my shitter pump mayor Ubu and.
Speaker 3: I thought that is good shitter pump and just the
Speaker 3: image that conjured up. It is always a little dirty
Speaker 3: things appeal to me when when people are rude and
Speaker 3: I say, I went up the whole of the journey
Speaker 3: listening to this.
Speaker 2: Barrel pumpkin refuse of humanity.
Speaker 1: I'm Paul muldun for a while now, I've been fortunate
Speaker 1: to spend time with one of the greatest songwriters of
Speaker 1: our era.
Speaker 2: And will you look at me, I'm going on to
Speaker 2: I'm actually a performer.
Speaker 1: That is Sir Paul McCartney. We worked together on a
Speaker 1: book looking at the lyrics of more than one hundred
Speaker 1: and fifty of his songs, and we recorded many hours
Speaker 1: of our conversations.
Speaker 3: It was like going back to an old snapshot album
Speaker 3: looking back on work I hadn't ever analyzed.
Speaker 1: This is McCartney, a life in lyrics, a masterclass, a memoir,
Speaker 1: and an improvised journey with one of the most iconic
Speaker 1: figures in popular music. In this episode, Maxwell's Silver.
Speaker 2: Hammer Todd B be E minor A seven D B A.
Speaker 3: Well, it's a story song, you know, It's one of
Speaker 3: my story songs. And I think I'm kind of unique
Speaker 3: in the Beatles for doing them, because if you look
Speaker 3: at Georgie, songs.
Speaker 2: Are always very auto biographical.
Speaker 3: It's very something he thinks, My sweet lord, you know,
Speaker 3: here comes the Sun and Mine.
Speaker 2: Mine's influenced.
Speaker 3: I think by that period of intense literature. This is
Speaker 3: why I do story songs. Where someone is making a
Speaker 3: writer is putting himself in the position of a person.
Speaker 3: It's the imagination that I like. So with things like
Speaker 3: Lax and Solama, I like the idea of making up people,
Speaker 3: dramatic persona John.
Speaker 5: Was quizzical, sturdy, bad physical sign late Night Song along
Speaker 5: with a testune.
Speaker 1: The lyric studied Pataphysical Science in the Home is a
Speaker 1: rather obscure reference to the work of the French playwright
Speaker 1: Alfred Jari, whose play Ubu Koku McCartney heard on his
Speaker 1: car radio. Jarry is often considered a forefather of Dadaism
Speaker 1: and surrealism, and he once described his made up discipline
Speaker 1: of pataphysics as the science of imaginary solutions.
Speaker 3: I got round to Jarry and pataphysics, and I had
Speaker 3: friends with a guy, Barry Miles, and he was very bookish.
Speaker 3: He look bookish. He started the Indica Bookstore with a
Speaker 3: couple of others. I used to just go around to
Speaker 3: his house.
Speaker 2: And we would just have dinner and we would just talk.
Speaker 3: So with Jarry we were talking about what part of
Speaker 3: physics was, and he was more knowledgeable than I have
Speaker 3: said when it wasn't It was a made up science,
Speaker 3: and he had the chair of pataphysics, and the have
Speaker 3: a partaphysical society.
Speaker 4: Remember that you are addressing a celebrated pataposition. Excuse me, sir,
Speaker 4: you said pataphosition. Pataphysics is a branch of science which
Speaker 4: we have invented and for which a crying.
Speaker 2: Need is generally experienced.
Speaker 4: Oh but you see, if you're a famous inventor, we'll
Speaker 4: understand each other.
Speaker 2: For between great men, a.
Speaker 4: Letter my modesty, sir. Besides, I see no great man
Speaker 4: here except myself. But since you insist, I have condescended
Speaker 4: to do you a most significant honor. Let it be
Speaker 4: known to you, sir, that your establishment suits us, and
Speaker 4: that we have decided to make ourselves at home here.
Speaker 3: I was just fascinated by the surrealism of it and
Speaker 3: the madness of it all, you know, so so that
Speaker 3: I was very happy to get the rhyme quizical and pataphysical.
Speaker 2: And then Joan. So we just started with a Joan. Okay,
Speaker 2: we've got a character.
Speaker 5: Joan was quizical study, pata physical science.
Speaker 2: Quite the way of study part of physical Science in
Speaker 2: the Home. Yes, in Science in the Home is almost
Speaker 2: like a title. So I like this.
Speaker 3: And then when it's like all alone with a test
Speaker 3: you there's something a bit sort of surreal but suggestive.
Speaker 5: Late Night's all along with a testube, well, the test tube.
Speaker 6: Of course, at that point the notion of the test tube,
Speaker 6: babe was probably you know very much at that point,
Speaker 6: wasn't it it wash?
Speaker 3: And also, if I'm going to talk about science, for me,
Speaker 3: my experience of science was pippetts and test tubes and once.
Speaker 2: All those wonderful things.
Speaker 5: Maxwell Edison Majorine in medicine, Can I take you out
Speaker 5: of the pictures?
Speaker 2: Joe?
Speaker 1: The name of the song's anti hero might have come
Speaker 1: from James Clark Maxwell, the Scottish scientist who developed the
Speaker 1: classical theory of electromagnetism, and Maxwell's surname Edison must have
Speaker 1: come from the inventor, Thomas Edison.
Speaker 2: I just loved the rhyme, as I loved Quizical by
Speaker 2: the Physical.
Speaker 5: Maxwell Edison Majorine ed Isser, Can I take you out
Speaker 5: to the pictures, Jum.
Speaker 1: When the Beatles were recording Maxwell's Silver Hammer and the
Speaker 1: Rest of Abbey Road, they were experimenting with their own science,
Speaker 1: that of music production.
Speaker 3: This coincided with the visit to Abbey Road of Robert Moog. Oh, Yes,
Speaker 3: here's adventure sizer. I no one had seen synthesizens. This
Speaker 3: is the very first. Was that the first time, and
Speaker 3: they took up a whole room.
Speaker 2: There was a huge thing and it filled the whole
Speaker 2: wall of the room.
Speaker 1: Here's the journalist Derry Cooper introducing the new instrument on television.
Speaker 2: It's the milk synthesizer. It produces sounds.
Speaker 3: In a matter of minutes, which would normally take radiophonic
Speaker 3: experts with their complicated equipment, days of work.
Speaker 2: And multiple re recording to achieve.
Speaker 3: George Martin was always very keen on these technological innovations.
Speaker 3: We probably find he knew Robert anyway, come over abro
Speaker 3: show us this logue thing, and I was fascinated, and
Speaker 3: he shows how to get these sounds from the walk.
Speaker 2: But it took a little longer than our normal songs.
Speaker 3: Took not crazy compared by today's standards, sure, but by
Speaker 3: those relatively long time by the standards of the day.
Speaker 5: She's scary ready.
Speaker 3: On the door.
Speaker 1: As we get to the chorus of the song, it
Speaker 1: shifts from a wholesome romance between the pataphysicist Joan and
Speaker 1: her medical suitor to a much more violent story that's
Speaker 1: well sailed.
Speaker 2: Game down, and.
Speaker 3: So now you know this is like noir cinema noir.
Speaker 3: I like the idea that we were all cozy and
Speaker 3: she's just a scientist and it's a little bit fun.
Speaker 3: And he's a doctor studying medicine student, medical student.
Speaker 2: But now he's going to kill ag. That's well that
Speaker 2: she was dead.
Speaker 6: It's serial murderer in some ways.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he is a serial murderer. And now we've whoa.
Speaker 3: We now got into a much darker world.
Speaker 5: School again, Max replays the pool again. The teacher gets annoyed.
Speaker 7: Wishing to avoid an unpleasant scene, she tells Max to say,
Speaker 7: when the glass is gone away, So dem wits behind
Speaker 7: writing fifty times, I must not be so.
Speaker 3: Writing fifty times, I must not be so fifty lines
Speaker 3: was a standard punishment in detention, right, I must not
Speaker 3: talking class, And I was always doing that. I was
Speaker 3: often in detention.
Speaker 6: I must not be so or whatever. It was so naughty,
Speaker 6: So parthon.
Speaker 2: I must not be so. I don't need to say
Speaker 2: the naughty, but.
Speaker 7: When she turns it back on, the boydreams up from behind.
Speaker 5: Maxwell's sail came down.
Speaker 1: To accentuate the shock of the deadly silver hammer. The
Speaker 1: chorus incorporated clangs of a hammer heading an anvil, though
Speaker 1: it's contested Ringo Starr likely did all the percussion for
Speaker 1: the recording, including that anvil. However, it was Mel Evans,
Speaker 1: the band's tour manager, who banged the hammer in rehearsals.
Speaker 7: Bang Bang Maxwell's silver saw that she was dead taking
Speaker 7: away Johnny.
Speaker 6: I mean is in Bang Bang Maxwell's silver hammer. It's
Speaker 6: not without its humor, and it conjures up. It conjures
Speaker 6: up for me a fair ground.
Speaker 2: Do you remember that thing? Is that part of what
Speaker 2: his strength? Yes, I don't know.
Speaker 3: To me, the silver hammer is like a medical thing. Okay,
Speaker 3: it's a bit ominous.
Speaker 6: I see, like the kind of thing used to knock
Speaker 6: your me to see what you're reflexing silver.
Speaker 3: I'm thinking like sort of chrome in my head, you know,
Speaker 3: silver hammer is a medical student.
Speaker 2: Medical students got just sort of crow hammer that.
Speaker 6: Yeah, But I mean it is a violent image of
Speaker 6: something coming to it.
Speaker 3: It is extremely violent. But that's that's the thing. Isn't
Speaker 3: it like surrealism. That's what happens. You get a very
Speaker 3: ordinary scene and then bang, it's a dramatic device as well.
Speaker 3: You know so, and I just I don't know why
Speaker 3: I wanted to do a sort of dark comedy. It's
Speaker 3: like a sort a dark comedy because it is a comedy.
Speaker 5: See thirty one said we go to dirty one. Maxwell
Speaker 5: stands painting testimonial pictures.
Speaker 3: You know PC thirty one. There was a PREC forty
Speaker 3: nine when I was a kid. Oh yeah, it was
Speaker 3: a character. Yeah, what was that in?
Speaker 2: I think it was possibly on the radio. I remember
Speaker 2: that PC.
Speaker 3: And leave instructions at the deck that I want to
Speaker 3: see PC forty nine as soon as he comes on tomorrow,
Speaker 3: I will.
Speaker 2: Say, excuse me, sarge.
Speaker 4: This sage and sent me out with this message for
Speaker 4: the DDI What did it come from?
Speaker 1: The Adventures of PC forty nine was a popular post
Speaker 1: war radio series produced by the BBC. The show followed
Speaker 1: the everyday slouthing of Police Constable Archibald Berkley Willoughby as
Speaker 1: he investigated cheating gamblers and other crimes on the cold
Speaker 1: streets of London.
Speaker 4: Say what have the police raid this place? I went still,
Speaker 4: We've got even that organized a system of warning bells
Speaker 4: and two tough boys on the door to they lie up.
Speaker 1: This old time noir radio show might have inspired the
Speaker 1: character gallery and setting of McCartney song.
Speaker 5: Throes and Valerie screaming from the gallery, say him, muscufa.
Speaker 5: The church does not agree, and he tells themselves.
Speaker 3: Rose and Valerie screaming from the gallery, you mus go free. So,
Speaker 3: I mean, he's got his supporters and it's like, oh,
Speaker 3: don't support him too much, girls, because.
Speaker 2: He'll kill you, you know. So it's a little bit on us,
Speaker 2: a little bits of the dark.
Speaker 5: Leaving his lips. The noise comes from behind.
Speaker 3: I like the idea of playing with them. I like
Speaker 3: the idea of giving him a story.
Speaker 6: Are saying what they come up with a suppose.
Speaker 3: You know, and then you know, putting Valerie in the gallery.
Speaker 6: It's such a joyous song.
Speaker 1: I mean, it has this dark undertoe, but it has.
Speaker 3: You know, it's tongue in cheek. You know that it's
Speaker 3: not a real story. This is not dateline. You know,
Speaker 3: this is made up. And I think that's the sort
Speaker 3: of joy of it. It's like a children's nursery rhyme,
Speaker 3: you know, chop, chop off your head. It's a big
Speaker 3: tradition of that stuff. You know, nursery rhymes are always
Speaker 3: chopping off people's heads or humpty dumpt it's always chopping
Speaker 3: and cracking. So there is this thing, boy, we can
Speaker 3: like because we can places in a safe place, and
Speaker 3: we can enjoy the macabre aspect because we know it's
Speaker 3: not really it's not a news story.
Speaker 1: There's certainly a mix of playfulness and darkness at the
Speaker 1: core of Maxwell's Silver Hammer. Despite the lightheartedness of the melody,
Speaker 1: the band's recording sessions for the song weren't quite so light.
Speaker 1: The other three Beatles publicly said they didn't like the track.
Speaker 1: Ringo Starr even said it was the worst song they
Speaker 1: ever recorded. Really, their frustration was less about the song
Speaker 1: itself and more about McCartney's admitted perfectionism in this video.
Speaker 2: And I was very keen on it. It took a
Speaker 2: little bit long to record.
Speaker 3: I remember the guys getting pissed with me occasionally, I
Speaker 3: in particular, would take too long because I was trying
Speaker 3: to get what was in my head.
Speaker 6: I was just going to ask you about how at
Speaker 6: this stage, how did at work.
Speaker 3: Recording sessions were always good because no matter what our
Speaker 3: personal troubles were, no matter what was sort of going
Speaker 3: down a minute, we sat down to make a song,
Speaker 3: we were good, well known boys. Our sort of skills
Speaker 3: came out, and so I think we all enjoyed being
Speaker 3: in this little skillful company where Ringo would do that,
Speaker 3: and George would play that, and John would do that
Speaker 3: which was slightly more eccentric, and I would do.
Speaker 2: On base or piano or whatever. So there was a
Speaker 2: great joy there.
Speaker 1: See Maxwell's silver Hammer from the Beatles nineteen sixty nine
Speaker 1: album Abbey Road.
Speaker 5: In the next episode, keenoocna see me well.
Speaker 2: Now it loox is though that he.
Speaker 1: Yesterday one of the most covered songs in music.
Speaker 7: History, yesterday.
Speaker 1: Suddenly that's next time on McCartney A Life in Lyrics.
Speaker 1: McCartney A Life in Lyrics is a co production between iHeartMedia,
Speaker 1: NPL and Pushkin Industries.