Ringo Starr Said The Beatles’ ‘Worst Session’ Ever Was for a Song All But 1 Bandmate Hated
By the late 1960s, The Beatles had grown so irritable with one another that recording sessions could go awry even if they liked the song they were working on. There were some songs that caused greater problems because most of the band disliked them. Ringo Starr, who was typically the most diplomatic of the group, recalled one brutal recording session. He shared what made it so frustrating.
Ringo Starr hated recording one Beatles song
After The Beatles broke up, Paul McCartney’s bandmates were against him. They sometimes weren’t all that fond of him while the band was still together, though. George Harrison said he got very frustrated while recording McCartney’s songs.
“Sometimes Paul would make us do these really fruity songs. I mean, my god, ‘Maxwell’s Silver Hammer’ was so fruity,” he told Crawdaddy Magazine. “After a while we did a good job on it, but when Paul got an idea or an arrangement in his head … But Paul’s really writing for a 14-year-old audience now anyhow.”
McCartney was a perfectionist and often pushed the group to get into the studio. They resented this, particularly when they had to work endlessly on songs they didn’t like. Starr said recording “Maxwell’s Silver Hammer” was torturous.
“The worst session ever was ‘Maxwell’s Silver Hammer,’” Starr told Rolling Stone. “It was the worst track we ever had to record. It went on for f***ing weeks. I thought it was mad.”
In McCartney’s memory, it didn’t take quite that long to record the song.
“They got annoyed because ‘Maxwell’s Silver Hammer’ took three days to record,” he said in The Beatles Anthology. “Big deal.”
John Lennon wasn’t present when The Beatles recorded the song
Lennon was not present for many of the recording sessions because of a recent car accident. He heard about them from Harrison and Starr, though.
“It was a typical McCartney single, or whatever,” Lennon said. “He did quite a lot of work on it. I was ill after the accident while they did most of the track and I believe he really ground George and Ringo into the ground recording it. We spent more money on that song than any of them on the whole album, I think.”
Lennon believed the song would have sounded better if he recorded it himself.
Paul McCartney shared what inspired him to write ‘Maxwell’s Silver Hammer’
McCartney shared the inspiration behind the song his bandmates loathed. He didn’t pull it from anything in his life.
“Some of my songs are based on personal experience, but my style is to veil it,” he said. “A lot of them are made up, like ‘Maxwell’s Silver Hammer’ which is the kind of song I like to write. It’s just a silly story about all these people I’d never met. It’s just like writing a play: you don’t have to know the people, you just make them up.”
Still, he said the song is not nonsense. It has a meaning.
“The song epitomizes the downfalls of life,” he said. “Just when everything is going smoothly — Bang! Bang! — down comes Maxwell’s silver hammer and ruins everything.”
