We’ve pretty well established how the non-Paul Beatles felt about “Maxwell’s Silver Hammer.” Ringo said, “It was the worst track we ever had to record. It went on for fucking weeks.” George groused, “My god, ‘Maxwell’s Silver Hammer’ was so fruity. After a while we did a good job on it, but when Paul got an idea or an arrangement in his head….” John, who didn’t even play on the damn thing, complained that “he made us do it a hundred million times.”
But in fairness to Paul, at this point “Silver Hammer” was almost complete, after just two days. Today a George guitar part and additional backing vocals were added and that was that, except for a Moog overdub that Paul would add on August 6. Maybe it just seemed like it took forever. Paul later clapped back, “They got annoyed because ‘Maxwell’s Silver Hammer’ took three days to record. Big deal.”
In addition to the work on “MSH,” today’s agenda included George recording double-tracked lead vocals for “Something” and Paul adding bass to “You Never Give Me Your Money.” On the whole the new album was coming along smartly, either despite or because of the fact that John hadn’t contributed anything to the sessions except a bed with Yoko in it.
Meanwhile, this was also the day that the “Space Oddity”/“Wild-Eyed Boy from Freecloud” single hit the streets. It may not have seemed like the world changed that day — “Space Oddity” was a slow-burner that didn’t hit the charts for months — but it did, at least a little. Chris O’Leary, everybody’s favorite Bowie writer, has just posted a lengthy appreciation of Major Tom at 50; if you want to get through it, you’d better get started.
Great article on Space Oddity. Thanks for the link.