What The Beatles’ “Sexy Sadie” Is Really About
Wikimedia CommonsJealousy over the influence of the Maharishi (above) may have inspired “Sexy Sadie.”
A nasty rumor spread by a jealous yogi may have inspired one of the White Album‘s most biting songs.
While in India, Lennon’s guru, Yanni Alexis Mardas, arrived. And some believed that Mardas, worried that Lennon might ditch him for another yogi named Maharishi, started spreading false rumors that Maharishi had a wandering eye.
“Alexis and a fellow female meditator began to sow the seeds of doubt into very open minds,” Cynthia Lennon later said. “Alexis’s statements about how the Maharishi had been indiscreet with a certain lady, and what a blackguard he had turned out to be gathered momentum. All, may I say, without a single shred of evidence or justification.”
According to Paul McCartney, the ruse worked on Lennon, who came to view Maharishi as an imposter.
As McCartney recounted:
“It was a big scandal. Maharishi had tried to get off with one of the chicks. I said, ‘Tell me what happened?’
“John said, ‘Remember that blonde American girl with the short hair? Like a Mia Farrow lookalike. She was called Pat or something.’ I said, ‘Yeah.’
“He said, ‘Well, Maharishi made a pass at her.’ So I said, ‘Yes? What’s wrong with that?’
“He said, ‘Well, you know, he’s just a bloody old letch just like everybody else. What the fuck, we can’t go following that!'”
Lennon soon packed his bags to leave India — at which point he says he began to write “Sexy Sadie.”
“That was written just as we were leaving, waiting for our bags to be packed in the taxi that never seemed to come,” Lennon said. “We thought: ‘They’re deliberately keeping the taxi back so as we can’t escape from this madman’s camp.'”
After returning to the U.K., George Harrison insisted on removing Maharishi’s name from the song.
“John had a song he had started to write which he was singing: ‘Maharishi, what have you done?'” Harrison said.
“And I said, ‘You can’t say that, it’s ridiculous.’ I came up with the title of Sexy Sadie and John changed ‘Maharishi’ to ‘Sexy Sadie.’ John flew back to Yoko in England and I went to Madras and the south of India and spent another few weeks there.”
However, if you ask Charles Manson (who nurtured a bizarre obsession with both The Beatles and the Beach Boys), “Sexy Sadie” was about Manson family member Susan Atkins, whom they had nicknamed Sadie Mae Glutz before the White Album‘s release.
Atkins — who served life in prison for her part in the Tate/LaBianca murders — died in 2009.
