Just listening to ...

[uwe]

Maxwell's Silver Hammer sounded like something off Magical Mystery Tour, it really didn't fit the altogether darker Abbey Road stuff. Still like it as a song. It's English Music Hall, so what, Paul always had that in his writing.

[Pilgrim]

Maxwell's Silver Hammer sounded like something off Magical Mystery Tour, it really didn't fit the altogether darker Abbey Road stuff. Still like it as a song. It's English Music Hall, so what, Paul always had that in his writing.

I always found the upbeat tone of the music to be an ironic contrast with the rather ghastly lyrics. I'm not quite sure how to reconcile the two, other than they were just messin' around.

[westen44]

Maxwell's Silver Hammer sounded like something off Magical Mystery Tour, it really didn't fit the altogether darker Abbey Road stuff. Still like it as a song. It's English Music Hall, so what, Paul always had that in his writing.

It's true the dance hall music was part of what Paul wrote about.  It would be hard to imagine some of those albums without it.  It mostly seemed to be John who disliked it.  But he was often critical of many of his own songs, too.  As for "Maxwell's Silver Hammer," i think a number of people think it just doesn't fit the album.  It probably would have fit better with "Magical Mystery Tour."  That album is odd, but I have always  liked it.  Speaking of dance hall music, "Your Mother Should Know" is one of Paul's best examples of that, IMO. 

[uwe]

But that's the Brits for you, they were always obsessed about their murderers.

[uwe]

"Your Mother Should Know" is a timeless work of art IMHO. When I first heard it - age 8 or so - it sounded like nothing I had heard before, yet the melody (which doesn't even feature a real chorus) immediately stuck. I then didn't hear the song for many years - my elder brother moved out and, of course, took the Magical Mystery EP with him, it's not a song you would hear on the radio -, but the melody never went out of my head.

[slinkp]

Yellow Submarine (the album) sounds odd too, not surprising because it's made up of odds    Relying on Wikipedia to fill in the gaps in my memory: It's got two previously-released singles ("Yellow Submarine" and "All you Need Is Love", a Sgt Pepper outtake ("Only a Northern Song"), a Magical Mystery Tour outtake ("It's All Too Much"), and two new songs ("Hey Bulldog" and "All Together Now") ... and those six songs were recorded over a period of almost two years during which the world of pop/rock was evolving ridiculously fast.

It's still pretty darn good stuff though.  Those two Harrison outtakes would have been major highlight tracks for most bands of the psychedelic era.  No wonder he got frustrated.