spokryr3

You're Paul McCartney, and it's January 24th, 1967. You're having dinner with this playwright you like. You claim his is the only play you've managed to sit through without getting a 'sore arse'. You like the play so much you've invested £1,000 in it. It's about this bisexual catholic boy whose mother just died (Hal), his childhood boy-best-friend/partner in crime, and the robbery they're in the process of committing. There's reason to believe you might have identified with this Hal character. Incidentally, this character seems to be named after the playwright's partner of 16 years, Halliwell.

You're Paul McCartney, and it's August 9th, 1967. The news breaks out that the previous night, the playwright has been bludgeoned to death by his partner, in a fit of rage and jealously, with 9 hammer blows to the head. The partner has then immediately committed suicide by overdosing on pills. The song that plays at the playwrights funeral, 9 days later, is his favorite record, "A Day In The Life". Unbeknownst to you, your friend and manager will die from a pill overdose in 9 days.

You're Paul McCartney, and it's the summer of 1968. Life as you knew it is falling apart. Your partner is now, out of the blue, seemingly in love with this new woman. Not only did you have to deal with them briefly living at your house, where just the year before you blissfully cohabitated with your partner, but he has also broken the sanctity of your creative space by bringing her into the studio and all writing sessions. At some point, you bring to the recording sessions a song about this guy named HalliMaxwell, who goes around bludgeoning people to death with his silver hammer. Incidentally, his first victim seems to be named after your partner of 11 years. You don't end up actually recording the track until a year later, during which you infamously psychologically torture your other two bandmates with it for three whole days. The way you speak about it, this song appears to echo your own concept of Instant Karma:

Maxwell’s Silver Hammer was my analogy for when something goes wrong out of the blue, as it so often does, as I was beginning to find out at that time in my life. [...] We still use that expression even now when something unexpected happens.

— Paul McCartney in Barry Miles' Many Years From Now (1997).

Some of my songs are based on personal experience, but my style is to veil it. A lot of them are made up, like ‘Maxwell’s Silver Hammer’ which is the kind of song I like to write. It’s just a silly story about all these people, I’d never met. It’s just like writing a play: you don’t have to know the people, you just make them up. I remember George once saying to me, ‘I couldn’t write songs like that.’ He writes more from personal experience. John’s style was to show the naked truth. If I was a painter, I’d probably mask things a little bit more than some people. The song epitomizes the downfalls of life. Just when everything is going smoothly – Bang! Bang! – Down comes Maxwell’s silver hammer and ruins everything.

— Paul McCartney in The Beatles Anthology (2000).

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Maxwell's Silver Hammer (1969): Bang! Bang! Maxwell's silver hammer / Came down upon her head. / Bang! Bang! Maxwell's silver hammer / Made sure that she was dead.

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Another post in the occasional series where I look at interesting discoveries made while researching material for the McLennon Files archive.

I knew I wanted to include John's collages in the archive, particularly the one (probably) for Paul called (maybe) "I Have Only Have Eyes for You" (above, in a high-resolution scan, finally). So I went on a deep dive to find out more, with a little help from my friends. More under the cut!

The masterpost on these collages was made by @lenetaylor, who shared images of the collages and sourced several articles. I used this as my starting point. There was also a post by @groovegalz (deactivated) sharing the collage titles, though the source for these was not cited.

The titles of the collages, as provided by groovegalz, are:

"You Always Hurt the One You Love” for George Harrison, date unknown;

Untitled for Ringo Starr, 1975;

"Who was Mother Goose?” [front; back] for Elton John, 1975

“I Only Have Eyes for You” for Paul McCartney, date unknown.

The title for Elton's collage is verified by an auction listing. George's one has the given title in the collage itself, and Ringo's is untitled. The Paul collage title source is unknown. It's possible the title is a misunderstanding based on a Hey Dullblog post.)

The are two main sources for information about the collage for Paul. One is a book called Beatles Memorabilia: The Julian Lennon Collection by Julian Lennon and Brian Southall (2010), the other is information about an exhibition from 2000 by artist Peter Blake called 'About Collage', in which the collage appears to have been included.

@gobnaits sourced a library copy of Beatles Memorabilia: The Julian Lennon Collection and scanned the page with the collage (Thank you!). The scan is included in this post, and preserved in the archive. Previous images of the collage have been medium to low quality, so it's great to have a high quality image to pore over! The scan includes the caption, which reads "A distinct and original collage of faces and bodies dedicated to Julian from Paul. It was created by John and given to Paul." 

@gobnaits also found a 2010 interview with Julian from Hello! magazine, in which he confirms that the collage was made by his father for Paul. Julian also states that Paul gave him a copy of the collage rather than the original. The interview extract is included in this post as well as on the archive.

A recurring data point in the original post was that the collage was supposedly made in the 1950s, when John was in art school. As @lenetaylor pointed out, this doesn't jive with the hair and clothes styles of many of the women in the image.

The caption in Beatles Memorabilia doesn't give a date for the collage's creation. An Independent article from 1 April 2000 states that the collage was "done at art school in the 1950s", while in the book published to accompany the Peter Blake exhibition the image credit reads "John Lennon 1940-1980, Untitled, late 1950s, Paper collage, 970 x 675mm, Private Collection". (Note the collage is untitled at this point, and the owner is not named. Paul is listed as donating other collages to the exhibition, but not this one.).

Aside from these two sources, no other sources claim the collage was made in the 1950s.

So what we can say with reasonable certainty about this collage? Based on the sources, we know:

it was made by John.

it was given to Paul.

Paul gave Julian a copy at some point before 2010.

A private owner, possibly Paul, loaned the original to the Peter Blake exhibition in 2000.

Whether he had the collage in 2000 or not, Paul did come to own it sometime between 2000 and 2010.

We don't know

exactly when it was made.

if it ever had a title.

where the suggested title "I Only Have Eyes for You" comes from.

Image 1: Scan from Beatles Memorabilia: The Julian Lennon Collection by Julian Lennon and Brian Southall (2010) of the collage made by John and given to Paul.