(
Note on the origins of this piece, and a revision update:
The final student project for the writing course I’m teaching is a research paper on The Beatles. I’m trying to teach students to bring their subtopic into a sharp, narrow focus; conduct their research while keeping accurate notes; outline the work before writing; vary the style of documenting sources within the text; and prepare the list of works cited, MLA style. Experience has taught me that providing a reliable model is the best way to accomplish these goals. What’s more, I believe that I should be willing to undertake any assignment I make, otherwise it would seem like busywork to the students as well as to myself. Thus, what follows is the model I wrote for the course. However, since I do not wish to bore readers with the details of footnotes and the proper attribution of ideas, in this entry I’ve done my best to eliminate all the tedious evidence of erudition. I hope you enjoy my take on the tale behind the writing of “Sexy Sadie.” As far as revision goes, I had to set rewriting aside for a few days to write this piece. I do resume work today, and 28 out of 50 chapters are ready to go.)
“We’re leaving,” he told the Maharishi.
“But why?” the Maharishi asked.
“You’re the cosmic one,” Lennon answered with his typical caustic wit. “You should know.”
Bruce Conord,
John LennonNovember 22, 1968, marks the date in which the double-record
The Beatles, better known as “The White Album,” was released. The group from Liverpool wrote most of the songs in this collection during a particularly relaxing and fertile meditation break in India. The result, according to the book
Rock and Roll: Year by Year, is a “richly diverse, often caustic double set that reflected the group’s separate paths”—the result of increasing tensions between the musicians.
Perhaps the most acerbic song on
The White Album is “Sexy Sadie.” This is the last piece John Lennon composed while in Rishikesh, India, during the retreat on the banks of the Ganges River where the Beatles had gone to study Transcendental Meditation with the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. The story behind the creation of “Sexy Sadie” is as intriguing as the song itself. According to Lennon, he was moved to write it after he became bitterly disillusioned upon hearing the rumor that the “Maharishi had made a pass at Mia Farrow and a few other women.” After an all-night conversation that included George Harrison, Lennon claims that he started to accept the possibility that there might be some truth to the rumor when his band-mate, a devoted follower of the Indian spiritual leader, began to doubt his teacher’s wholesomeness. It was at that point, Lennon says, that he decided to abandon the camp.
George Harrison, however, until his death in 2001, vehemently defended the Maharishi, saying the accusations were “bullshit, total bullshit. Just go ask Mia Farrow.” And in subsequent years, others who also were in Rishikesh have supported his assertion. Cynthia Lennon goes as far as to name “Magic” Alex Karras, a notorious Beatles’ hanger-on, as the person responsible for creating the rumor because he was jealous of the Maharishi’s influence over John. And Paul McCartney backs Cynthia’s view: “It was Magic Alex who made the original accusation and I think it was completely untrue.”
(Interestingly, the Maharishi, who died on February 5, 2008, never commented in public about the accusations. Furthermore, George Harrison remained, for the rest of his life, a devoted follower of the Maharishi’s teachings. What’s more, it’s interesting to note that the documentary
The Beatles’ Anthology makes no mention whatsoever of the incident—an indication that the surviving Beatles wished to let it be.)
Regardless of the question of the veracity of the rumor, the incident served as the creative spark for Lennon’s composition. Harrison, years after Lennon’s death, recalls the original version and his role in helping to alter it. According to the group’s lead guitarist, Lennon initial lyrics went: “Maharishi, what have you done.” And Harrison went on to add, “I then came up with the title of ‘Sexy Sadie’ and John changed Maharishi to Sexy Sadie.” The final version is as follows, but we only need to substitute “Sexy Sadie” for “Maharishi”—as well as changing the gender of all pronouns—to understand fully the underlying anger in Lennon’s words:
"Sexy Sadie, what have you done?
You’ve made a fool of everyone.
You’ve made a fool of everyone.
Sexy Sadie, ooh, what have you done?
Sexy Sadie, you broke the rules
You laid it down for all to see.
You laid it down for all to see.
Sexy Sadie, ooh, you broke the rules.
One sunny day, the world was waiting for a lover.
She came along to turn on everyone.
Sexy Sadie is the greatest of them all.
Sexy Sadie, how did you know?
The world was waiting just for you.
The world was waiting just for you.
Sexy Sadie, ooh, how did you know?
Sexy Sadie, you’ll get yours yet.
However big you think you are.
However big you think you are.
Sexy Sadie, you’ll get yours yet.
We gave her everything we owned just to sit at her table.
Just a smile would lighten everything.
Sexy Sadie she’s the latest and the greatest of them all."
The resentment over feeling betrayed is evident in the biting lyrics that describe deceit, the violation of trust, and suggests the operation of a scam on a global scale. Moreover, in the recording, the tunneling, distant echo of the keyboard, Lennon’s plaintive singing, and the mournful guitar that closes the song reflect, and perfectly, the composer’s wounded sentiments.
In the weblog
Hey Dullblog: People Who Think About the Beatles Maybe a Little Too Much, Mike Gerber, in the posting “
What Sexy Sadie Did,” written on the occasion of the Maharishi’s death, presents the theory that John Lennon lived most of his life on a continual search for parental figures. This is plausible since his father abandoned him early on; his mother left him as a young boy in the care of her sister, and shortly after stepping back into his life she died in a traffic accident. “What Sexy Sadie Did” goes on to suggest that Brian Epstein, the Beatles’ manager, came to fill the role of the missing father, and that immediately after Epstein’s death, Lennon rushed to fill the renewed void with the Maharishi. It should not be surprising, then, that the rumor—coupled with the fact that Yoko One was looming on the horizon as the next parental figure—would propel Lennon to direct his anger at the Maharishi’s perceived betrayal in the form of a song before he departed abruptly from Rishikesh.
But setting aside the story of the creation of “Sexy Sadie,” the truth is that this precious fruit of bitterness has brought pleasure to countless listeners and that writing the song served as a crucial catharsis for John Lennon: it was a creative outlet for his hostility that allowed him to move on with his life after the vast disappointment he experienced in India. Paul McCartney suggests this when he states: “John wrote ‘Sexy Sadie’ to get it (the feeling of betrayal) off of his chest.”
