Maxwell's Silver Hammer

In the first stanza (with Joan), I think McCartney is saying something about serial killing as a perversion of life force, and also a twist on the moral import of urban legends. Joan indulges the neurotic impulse to dabble in occultish things ("alternate" scientific models / theosophy) and masturbation (oh, that test tube!), and winds up with her head bashed in by a dapper fellow. The effect is sort of like an urban legend-style cautionary tale. But instead of being a warning that making out with your boyfriend on the couch during a babysitting gig will be causally linked to the murder of your young charges upstairs, it's a sort of ironically welcome twist; about how sexual stifling becomes a spur to your untimely demise. This, to me, seems typically McCartneyesque, in line with the down'n'dirty, matter-of-fact, "make love not war" approach to life that's often reflected in his lyrics.

After that, it's a sort of banal defensive business; Maxwell uses murder to avoid answerability for classroom hijinks, then uses his little hammer to evade judgement.

I'm suddenly remembering the effect these lyrics had on my when I first heard them as a kid. The "silver" of the hammer seemed really interesting. Why a silver hammer?; why not just a plain old steel ball peen or something? At the time I sensed something banally sinister, and connected it to American foreign policy, which had, at the time, been nothing if not banally sinister. Americans spent US$400B to kill 2.5M Vietnamese--quite the expensive hammer, wot?--and then got their panties in a bunch when anyone dared to question the morality of this state of affairs. Who's to say that Robt Kennedy and MLK--for that matter, JFK!--weren't killed by that very same silver hammer?

Now I know that at this point people will remonstrate, "Hey! It's just a nice song! Back off!" But I think McCartney was a tremendous songwriter with that rare gift for channeling his subconscious, but doing so with awareness, artistry, and flair. There had to be a reason his subconscious was feeding him this bizarre image--a "nice" young man bashing in people's heads by expensive means and with a happy-go-lucky absence of compunction. Actually, that last bit--the lack of awareness of the wrongness of doing this--is key. So the first question is: Is McCartney trying to tell us something we need to know? If Maxwell is unaware that what he is doing is wrong, could someone else be? Who might that person be?

Whoever that person may be, one thing is for certain: As long as that person is Someone Else, then nothing will ever change. It's when that person becomes Us that the possibility of moral awakening emerges from slumber.