ZOOMING UP THE MOTORWAY FROM LONDON TO LIVERPOOL in the aforementioned Aston Martin, I fiddled around on the radio for something and happened on a BBC Radio 3 production of Ubu Cocu. It was first broadcast on 21 December 1965, with a repeat on 10 January 1966. It’s one of three plays, including the better-known Ubu Roi, by the French dramatist Alfred Jarry and is subtitled ‘a pataphysical extravaganza’. ‘Pataphysical’ is a nonsense word Jarry made up to poke fun at toffee-nosed academics. I was then thrilled when I was able to rhyme ‘quizzical’ with ‘pataphysical’ in this song. How often do you get that chance? I liked that people wouldn’t necessarily know what ‘pataphysical’ was, so I was being a little bit obscure on purpose.

Maxwell is possibly a descendant of James Clerk Maxwell, who was a pioneer of electromagnetism. Edison is obviously related to Thomas Edison. They’re two inventor types. Part of the fun here is that Edison is connected to the lightbulb and the phonograph, and here we were making a gramophone record. Speaking of lightbulbs, they’re going off all the time, particularly when those little chimes happen. ‘Edison’ and ‘medicine’. ‘Valerie’ and ‘gallery’.

The thing about Maxwell is that he’s a serial killer, and his hammer isn’t an ordinary household hammer but, as I envision it, one that doctors use to hit your knee. Not made of rubber, though. Silver.

Also invoked is the world of the children’s nursery rhyme, where people are always getting their heads chopped off – and of course, there’s also the Queen of Hearts from Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, who’s always saying, ‘Off with their heads!’ Ian Brady and Myra Hindley, the Moors murderers, had been jailed for life in 1966 for committing serial murders. That case was quite likely in my mind, as it was front page news in the UK.

I was very keen on this song, but it took a bit long to record, and the rest of the guys were getting pissed with me. This recording period coincided with the visit to Abbey Road of Robert Moog, the inventor of the Moog synthesizer, and I was fascinated with what could be done with these new sounds. That’s one reason why it took a little longer than our normal songs. Not crazy compared to today’s standards – it was something like three days – but a long time by the standards of the day. This song is also an analogy for when something goes wrong out of the blue, as I was beginning to find happening around this time in our business dealings. Recording sessions were always good because no matter what our personal troubles were, no matter what was happening on the business front, the minute we sat down to make a song we were in good shape. Right until the end there was always a great joy in working together in the studio.

So there we were, recording a song like ‘Maxwell’s Silver Hammer’ and knowing we would never have the opportunity to perform it. That possibility was over. It had been knocked on the head like one of Maxwell’s victims. Bang bang.