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TL;DR:

  • Some of The Beatles had different feelings on one of The Beatles’ songs from Abbey Road.
  • An anvil was used as an instrument on the song.
  • John felt the track was incredibly expensive.
The Beatles on steps
The Beatles | Bettmann / Contributor

A song from The Beatles‘ Abbey Road uses an anvil as an instrument. A sound engineer said Paul McCartney and John Lennon had conflicting opinions about the song. On the other hand, George Harrison called the song “fruity” but felt it was well-executed.

John Lennon called 1 of The Beatles’ songs ‘granny music’

Geoff Emerick worked as a sound engineer on The Beatles’ Revolver, Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, and Abbey Road. In a 2014 interview with MusicRadar, he recalled the creation of “Maxwell’s Silver Hammer.” “There were two struggles going on with this song: Paul and John fighting over whether it should even exist!” he said. 

“John called it ‘more of Paul’s granny music,'” Emerick added. “But there was my own struggle coming up with the sounds that should go on it.”

Emerick discussed how an anvil was used on the song. “For the hammer bits, we actually had to rent a proper blacksmith’s anvil,” he said. “The thing weighed a ton, as did the hammer used to strike it. Ringo tried but he just couldn’t hoist the hammer in a way that allowed him to hit the anvil with the correct timing, so Mal Evans [one of The Beatles’ roadies], who was a large man, he wound up doing it.”

“The other thing was the Moog synthesizer solos in the middle and end, which sound almost like a Theremin. The Moog was a fascinating new instrument for everybody — George, in particular, loved working with it — but Paul played these solos. He tinkered around until he got a really incredible, spacey sound that worked quite well.”

John Lennon said The Beatles spent more money on the track than any of the other songs from The Beatles’ ‘Abbey Road’

The book All We Are Saying: The Last Major Interview with John Lennon and Yoko Ono includes an interview from 1980. In it, John was asked about “Maxwell’s Silver Hammer.” He said the song was entirely Paul’s work and he hated it. Despite this, the tune is credited to the Lennon-McCartney songwriting partnership.

John said the other members of the band hated “Maxwell’s Silver Hammer” because they had to work on it so much. He said Paul paid someone else to make the anvil sounds on the track. He believed The Beatles spent more money on “Maxwell’s Silver Hammer” than any other song from the album.

George Harrison said Paul McCartney wrote many ‘fruity’ songs

The book George Harrison on George Harrison: Interviews and Encounters includes an interview from 1977. During the interview, George discussed Paul’s creative process. He said Paul would work on 10 of his own songs before helping the “My Sweet Lord” singer with one of his.

George opined Paul made The Beatles record “fruity” songs such as “Maxwell’s Silver Hammer.” George said the band executed the song well after working on it for a while.

Some of The Beatles disliked “Maxwell’s Silver Hammer” but it certainly uses an interesting instrument.

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