The White Album 50 Project: "Sexy Sadie"

The first time I heard "Sexy Sadie," I thought John Lennon was singing about a glamorous movie actress, a Marilyn-type figure who "came along to turn on everyone."  The lyrics seem to indicate a dismissal of Hollywood-style superficiality, but it definitely expresses hostility toward idol-worship that the Beatles had trouble handling when they became idols themselves. The real target of John's hostility, however, was not a movie goddess (and, not even a woman).  It was, though, about someone everyone treated like a god - the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi.

John and George Harrison were the last two Beatles at the Maharishi's meditation course in the spring of 1968, Ringo Starr having left with his wife Maureen after three days because the food was too spicy and Paul having left with Jane Asher when he and Jane decided they'd gotten as much as they could out of the ashram.  Later, when someone charged that the Maharishi had made a sexual advance toward actress Mia Farrow, who attended the ashram with her siblings, the Beatles, Donovan and the Beach Boys' Mike Love, John left in disgust and convinced George to leave as well, even though George doubted the charge.  John had also come to believe that the Maharishi was really after the money of the Beatles and other celebrities, even though he didn't seem to be enjoying a hypocritical lifestyle with it.  When John told the guru that he, George and their wives were leaving, the Maharishi asked why.  "Well," John said, "if you're so cosmic, you'll know."

The Maharishi gave John such a furious look that it scared him.  

John wrote "Sexy Sadie" with the title "Maharishi" but changed the title and the gender of his target per George's insistence that he avoid libeling the guru in public.  (Sexy Sadie's true identity was only revealed after John's anger abated and he no longer needed to fear retribution from his protagonist.)  As a song, "Sexy Sadie" drips deliciously with anger,  the second-party verses claiming that the Maharishi had made fools of his followers and violated the ethics and responsibilities of his position.  John expresses hope that he gets what's coming to him.  John does give the Maharishi a back-handed compliment, crediting him for his timing - "the world was waiting just for you," just like they wait for any charlatan who comes along to "enlighten" them.  In the second bridge, John cleverly includes himself as one of the Maharishi's dupes, finding solidarity with those who had been ready to give the guru everything they had for his company; John is also uncharacteristically sympathetic toward any other followers of the Maharishi who may have felt cheated, in sharp contrast to the sneering contempt for Eastern cultists that Steely Dan would later voice in their 1973 song "Bodhisattva."  John's kiss of death? He tells his audience that the guru was "the greatest of them all."  Ah, sarcasm.

All  the while, though, John keeps people guessing whom he's talking about, carefully avoiding any specific references that could unmask his object of derision.  Even today, neophyte Beatles fans just learning about the group could easily guess wrongly who Sexy Sadie is.

The music is the only clue to Sadie's identity. "Sexy Sadie" is carried by a tart piano riff with a gentle electric-guitar growl and a throbbing bass line. Ringo's drums deepen the tension with their precision.  John is clearly expressing musically what he isn't saying in literal verses.  As another laugh on the Maharishi, Paul and George provide fifties-style backing harmonies, and John concludes the second bridge with a Beach Boys-style falsetto.  Taunting Mike Love, are we?  More likely, John was, as Tim Riley insisted in his book "Tell Me Why," offering "the sting of the betrayal."

Crafting the song to sound like it's about someone else, though, proved to be the right call.  The presentation of "Sexy Sadie" as a song about a woman allowed John to vent and move on, and the Maharishi was able to move on as well. The song can be appreciated as a clever critique . . . not necessarily as a song against the Maharishi, but as an example of how to write a critical song about someone - anyone - without causing lasting resentment and without being too overtly personal.  And,  it's still effective as a cautionary tale against idol-worship.  However, controversy over what motivated Lennon's disillusionment with the guru would remain, as the sexual-misconduct charge against the Maharishi still lingers. George Harrison dismissed the charge that the Maharishi had made a sexual advance toward Mia Farrow (above, with the guru), but Mia Farrow herself was reported to have confirmed the charge.  As the report came from the gossip Web site Page Six in 2014, though, the accuracy of the story is quite suspect.  But the Maharishi's reputation managed to recover and survive over time.  Paul has always valued the experience of learning Transcendental Meditation, and he renewed his friendship with the Maharishi in 2007, a year before the guru's death.  Farrow's sister Prudence and Mike Love, who finished the 1968 course, remain devoted followers of Transcendental Meditation. The Maharishi himself was never angry at any of the Beatles, saying, "I could never be upset with angels."

Unknowingly, Mia Farrow would be continuously associated with sexual harassment and sexual abuse, regardless of what actually happened back in 1968.  She would weather a very public and very nasty breakup with Woody Allen when he began having a relationship with their adopted daughter, and the son Woody and Mia sired together, Ronan Farrow, would become the leading sexual-misconduct investigative reporter of his day.  (Ronan Farrow's most recent coup is a news story taking down CBS executive Les Moonves and, indirectly,  "60 Minutes" producer Jeff Fager.)

The Beatles wrote a good deal of songs with feminine-name titles on the White Album that became the songs of and for women with those names; girls and women named Prudence, Martha and Julia likely smile when they hear them.  But if your name happens to be Sadie, I feel so freakin' sorry for you.

You'll get yours yet.