January 1969. The Beatles rehearse Maxwell’s Silver Hammer during the Get Back sessions. Paul McCartney later said the song was his analogy for something going wrong “out of the blue” — sudden misfortune — and imagined Maxwell using a doctor’s hammer, not a weapon. The contrast was the point: a bright melody paired with a story about Maxwell Edison, a student who murders with a hammer. The song wore the band down. George Harrison and John Lennon both found the recording tedious, another strain i