Friday, February 18, 2011

Brilliant: Maxwell's SILVER Hammer Came Down on Blythe Masters' Head (SLV; JPM)

The oeuvre of songs about serial killers is not as limited a genre as one may at first suspect.
Most everyone, with a little thought, will come up with Mack the Knife (rape, murder, arson) and of course the Talking Heads' Psycho Killer ("psycho killer, qu'est-ce que c'est?").
As part of the British Invasion the Rolling Stones contributed Midnight Rambler (Boston Strangler) and Sympathy for the Devil (Nazis, Communists, Satan).

Best of the bunch has to be the Beatles' Maxwell's Silver Hammer (kills his girlfriend, his teacher and the sentencing judge).
Blythe Masters is the head of commodities trading for J.P. Morgan and was one of the co-inventors of Credit Default Swaps which played such a large part in the financial meltdown of 2007-09.
Ms. Masters urged regulators to distinguish between tools and their users: “Tools that transfer risk can also increase systemic risk if major counterparties fail to manage their exposures properly.”

I'm assuming the reader is familiar with the run in silver and the conspiracy theories about JPM's positioning.

Here's a commenter at Clusterstock:

imdwightgooden on Feb 18, 12:53 PM said: 
 
Blythe was quizzical, studied pataphysical
Science in the home
Late nights all alone with a test-tube ohh oh oh oh
Maxwell Edison majoring in medicine
Calls her on the phone
Can I take you out to the pictures, Blythe?
But as she's getting ready to go
A knock comes on the door

Bang, bang, Maxwell's silver hammer
Came down upon her head
Bang, bang, Maxwell's silver hammer
Made sure that she was dead

Back in school again Maxwell plays the fool again
Teacher gets annoyed
Wishing to avoid an unpleasant scene
She tells Max to stay when the class has gone away
So he waits behind
Writing 50 times "I must not be so" oh oh oh
But when she turns her back on the boy
He creeps up from behind

Bang, bang, Maxwell's silver hammer
Came down upon her head
Do do do do do
Bang, bang, Maxwell's silver hammer
Made sure that she was dead

P.C. Thirty-One said "We caught a dirty one"
Maxwell stands alone
Painting testimonial pictures ohh oh oh oh
Ben and Timmah screaming from the gallery
Say he must go free (Maxwell must go free)
The judge does not agree and he tells them so oh oh oh
But as the words are leaving his lips
A noise comes from behind

Bang, bang, Maxwell's silver hammer
Came down upon his head
Do do do do do
Bang, Bang, Maxwell's silver hammer
Made sure that he was dead
Wow wow wow oh!
Do do do do do

Silver hammer Max

Finally here's Neko Case doing a song about her recollections of being a young woman living in Seattle while the Green River Killer was doing his murderous thing. Neko is great solo but I think she was better with The New Pornographers.