In retrospect, "Maxwell's" warned us how frequently shitty Paul's solo career would be. For every keeper Paul (alone or with Linda) or Wings would cut, they would drop about ten or eleven turds.
― birdistheword, Monday, 6 December 2021 19:08 (two years ago) link
lol @ "Big deal."
― So who you gonna call? The martini police (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, 6 December 2021 19:11 (two years ago) link
that song sucks so fucking bad
― marcos, Monday, 6 December 2021 19:12 (two years ago) link
i hate it, i've listened to the rest of the album a million times but that song maybe only 3-6 times all the way through
― marcos, Monday, 6 December 2021 19:13 (two years ago) link
Yeah the other thing they all lost when they broke up was an editor. None of them benefited from the freedom, really.
I went to see The French Dispatch yesterday, and it made me think about how the whole rooftop concert kind of plays out like a real-life Wes Anderson clip. You have the historic building, madcap escapades, officious but befuddled policemen, and it comes with its own '60s rock soundtrack. Just needed a chase scene.
― a man often referred to in the news media as the Duke of Saxony (tipsy mothra), Monday, 6 December 2021 19:13 (two years ago) link
speaking of editors, Wes needs one.
― So who you gonna call? The martini police (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, 6 December 2021 19:14 (two years ago) link
i love "maxwell's" but i also love a great deal of macca solo/wings
― STOCK FIST-PUMPER BRAD (BradNelson), Monday, 6 December 2021 19:14 (two years ago) link
plus it's obv Paul would've recorded "Maxwell's" by himself in 1969 if he had to.
― So who you gonna call? The martini police (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, 6 December 2021 19:15 (two years ago) link
Yup. Tho I enjoyed more than you, I think. (Me being the kind of guy with actual New Yorker covers on my living room wall.)
― a man often referred to in the news media as the Duke of Saxony (tipsy mothra), Monday, 6 December 2021 19:16 (two years ago) link
omg i just had a *feeling* brad would show up and i'd have to reassess this piece of music in light of that
― marcos, Monday, 6 December 2021 19:17 (two years ago) link
i just find it sharply written and extremely demented in a good way. those piano breaks
― STOCK FIST-PUMPER BRAD (BradNelson), Monday, 6 December 2021 19:18 (two years ago) link
if i were playing it for three days straight i would hate it too prob
― STOCK FIST-PUMPER BRAD (BradNelson), Monday, 6 December 2021 19:19 (two years ago) link
do ppl really think Paul just made up "get back" right there? i assumed it was just something he had in his back pocket or whatever. i haven't watched this whole thing so ignore me if i'm off
― Heez, Monday, 6 December 2021 19:20 (two years ago) link
I don't at all dislike "Maxwell's." Too well-constructed. And those Moog flourishes never get credit.
― So who you gonna call? The martini police (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, 6 December 2021 19:22 (two years ago) link
he plays a single riff on the guitar over and over again until the song all of the sudden emerges, it’s dope you should see it
― STOCK FIST-PUMPER BRAD (BradNelson), Monday, 6 December 2021 19:22 (two years ago) link
Sure looks/sounds like he made it up or at least developed it right there. Who knows if he'd been tinkering with the riff already, but it starts out pretty unformed.
― a man often referred to in the news media as the Duke of Saxony (tipsy mothra), Monday, 6 December 2021 19:22 (two years ago) link
alternate reality: beatles get so fed up with Paul they break up in January 1969. in a huff to prove them wrong, he spends the remaining year almost entirely in the studio, meticulously working all his half-finished ideas to absurd degrees of gloss and perfection. his debut solo album features not only "Maybe I'm Amazed," "Teddy Boy," "Every Night," etc., but also "Let It Be," "Oh! Darling," "Another Day," the smash Linda duet "Two of Us," and the staggering art-rock medley closer, "The Long And Winding Road (Silver Hammer)."
― I Am Fribbulus (Xax) (Doctor Casino), Monday, 6 December 2021 19:23 (two years ago) link
i am aligned with Brad on Maxwell i like the dementedness & as a kid i was super into the morbid angle and I like a lot of solo McCartney/Wings too
― terminators of endearment (VegemiteGrrl), Monday, 6 December 2021 19:23 (two years ago) link
I don't like that song but in retrospect, it probably wasn't the biggest crime-against-humanity in their catalog. And even if it is, well, what of it?
Logically speaking even the Beatles have a worst song. A song that took longer than it was worth. If this is theirs, well, something had to be.
Like, does anyone bother to hate on, say, "Piggies" as much or as exhaustively?
― Ennui de Toulouse-Lautrec (Ye Mad Puffin), Monday, 6 December 2021 19:23 (two years ago) link
these two thing rule wrt “maxwells silver hammer”:the vocalless chorus with the harmonizing guitars the moog wailing
― brimstead, Monday, 6 December 2021 19:23 (two years ago) link
haaaaaaaaaaaaaaammmers across the water (ding ding!)haaaaaaaaaaaammmmeeeeers across the sky
― I Am Fribbulus (Xax) (Doctor Casino), Monday, 6 December 2021 19:24 (two years ago) link
I don't hate Maxwell but I wish we had that kind of footage of them working up Come Together, e.g.
― a man often referred to in the news media as the Duke of Saxony (tipsy mothra), Monday, 6 December 2021 19:25 (two years ago) link
xp - no i saw that part. i figured it was something he had already which is why i was more blown away with George being like here's "i, me, mine" wrote it last night. i mean it's fucking incredible regardless
― Heez, Monday, 6 December 2021 19:26 (two years ago) link
Pretty much the same here. I just skip it altogether now - the album feels like a perfect masterpiece when I can forget it was ever wedged in.
Every time I see that Beatles parody on The Simpsons where the Apu complains about Homer's shitty songs, I immediately assume Homer's Paul and that the unheard Mr. T song is about as shitty as "Maxwell's."
― birdistheword, Monday, 6 December 2021 19:26 (two years ago) link
LMAO.
― birdistheword, Monday, 6 December 2021 19:27 (two years ago) link
Maxwell came in stinking of ginand proceeded to lie on the table
― Ennui de Toulouse-Lautrec (Ye Mad Puffin), Monday, 6 December 2021 19:28 (two years ago) link
as far as their worst track of all, Scik Mouthy already moderated a comprehensive album-by-album survey, capped by abanana's seemingly definitive poll of the results: Worst Beatles song ever relevant precursor thread here: Worst Beatles song on Abbey Road
i've always enjoyed "Maxwell's," but not sure i could really mount a defense. i' m just someone who's generally open to paul's goofy bullshit and de-doot-de-DOO-doo embellishment. i like the lush recording. the chorus is catchy. i fell headfirst into this album when i was 13 or 14 and i'm just never going to hear it with the same ears as someone who arrived as an adult, for whom it perhaps stands out from the Abbey Road tracklist like a hammer-smashed thumb.
― I Am Fribbulus (Xax) (Doctor Casino), Monday, 6 December 2021 19:30 (two years ago) link
Maxwell could have been Paul's Chinese Democracy, a song he kept changing and adding to until it's a 3-hour Maxwell Chronicles that he finally releases in 2023 as a VR movie.
― a man often referred to in the news media as the Duke of Saxony (tipsy mothra), Monday, 6 December 2021 19:30 (two years ago) link
lol now my preferred alternate reality is one where the tapes are all shelved and it acquires the same mystique as "Carnival of Light"
― I Am Fribbulus (Xax) (Doctor Casino), Monday, 6 December 2021 19:31 (two years ago) link
Was it upthread on here or somewhere else that someone gets annoyed with people believing that the song is developed in real time in that clip? I read the debunking before so I saw the clip so I'm not sure what I'd have thought otherwise.
― Alba, Monday, 6 December 2021 19:31 (two years ago) link
imagine all the die-hards complaining about every new Anthology/reissue/remaster/Naked production, "JUST GIVE US MAXWELL'S SILVER HAMMER YOU COWARDS!!!"
― I Am Fribbulus (Xax) (Doctor Casino), Monday, 6 December 2021 19:32 (two years ago) link
I will say it's well-produced on Abbey Road. George, God bless him, adds some nice guitar licks. And I think it may have George Martin who was smart enough to convince Paul to get rid of the monumentally shitty whistling bit. But it's still pretty inane, especially the dopey funny-voice harmonizing (a weakness that would only get worse on Paul's records throughout the '70s).
― birdistheword, Monday, 6 December 2021 19:33 (two years ago) link
*may have been
was paul the roger waters of the group or john?!
― xzanfar, Monday, 6 December 2021 19:39 (two years ago) link
John was the Roger and Paul the David, obv
"Maxwell" is a completely unnecessary song and the world could have kept turning without it, but I'm not surprised Paul advocated for it given how much work went into it
The one I still amn't able to forgive (and isn't captured in the Worst poll) is "Rocky Raccoon"
― Ennui de Toulouse-Lautrec (Ye Mad Puffin), Monday, 6 December 2021 19:41 (two years ago) link
yeah but Mo an Yoko sang on it
― So who you gonna call? The martini police (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, 6 December 2021 19:43 (two years ago) link
There is a reasonable case to be made that George is the Garfunkel
― Ennui de Toulouse-Lautrec (Ye Mad Puffin), Monday, 6 December 2021 19:45 (two years ago) link
paul was definitely playing up the bullshit for the cameras... "OH MY I JUST CAME UP WITH THIS WEE DITTY LAST NIGHT IN ME DREAMS" and proceeds to play a fully arranged backseat of my car
― kurt schwitterz, Monday, 6 December 2021 20:05 (two years ago) link
"rocky raccoon" is a great song. "maxwell's" to some degree i get the hate, but that one, no
― STOCK FIST-PUMPER BRAD (BradNelson), Monday, 6 December 2021 20:07 (two years ago) link
i dig rocky
tons of paul songs i really love
― marcos, Monday, 6 December 2021 20:09 (two years ago) link
xposts you have to imagine that was a pretty normal thing for them, walking in and being like "Oh, I wrote this last night." They wrote and recorded so much so fast, it's not like they ever had months to just let a song percolate.
― a man often referred to in the news media as the Duke of Saxony (tipsy mothra), Monday, 6 December 2021 20:09 (two years ago) link
George was already doing yet getting shit for it
― So who you gonna call? The martini police (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, 6 December 2021 20:10 (two years ago) link
*doing it
x post well i def believe george wrote i me mine the night before lol
― kurt schwitterz, Monday, 6 December 2021 20:10 (two years ago) link
rocky racoon vs bungalow bill
― fetter, Monday, 6 December 2021 20:20 (two years ago) link
rocky racoon is pretty bad
re maxwell’s, total co-sign to whoever said they dug the macabre angle when they were a kid - I had a fucked up C90 that a schoolfriend made me of “later Beatles” and it frequently freaked me right out - particularly Revolution 9 and She’s So Heavy (props to friend Donald for including those!) - like I was sort of terrified of them
i’m not saying Maxwell’s is in the same league or ever was but it was on that tape too and did fit with that sense I had of the Beatles being able to tap into some pretty dark/sinister vibes - the jauntiness kind of accentuated the nastiness of the narrative
but yeah now I pretty much hate it
― lemmy incaution (emsworth), Monday, 6 December 2021 20:26 (two years ago) link
Maxwell just doesn't fit on side one of Abbey Road at all. In context of a different album (like the eclectic-ness of the white album or twee-ness of MMT) I think it would have worked better. Having it follow Come Together and Something just intensifies the one-of-these-things-is-not-like-the-other vibes the track projects in relation to the rest of AR.
― bookmarkflaglink (Darin), Monday, 6 December 2021 20:43 (two years ago) link
― STOCK FIST-PUMPER BRAD (BradNelson), Monday, December 6, 2021 3:07 PM (thirty-six minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink
― J. Sam, Monday, 6 December 2021 20:45 (two years ago) link
i like the dementedness & as a kid i was super into the morbid angle
Ditto on liking it as a kid (I got Abbey Road for my 5th birthday). It has not aged well for me, though. It's like if Dana Carvey's Paul impression was a song, but not funny.
― Montgomery Burns' Jazz (Tarfumes The Escape Goat), Monday, 6 December 2021 20:47 (two years ago) link
― bookmarkflaglink (Darin), Monday, December 6, 2021 1:43 PM (seven minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink
that same side has "oh darling" -> "octopus' garden" -> "i want you," i'm not sure this "doesn't fit in" thesis holds up
― STOCK FIST-PUMPER BRAD (BradNelson), Monday, 6 December 2021 20:51 (two years ago) link