Beatles fans know there was a point where things for the band would never be the same again. Well, more than a few points, to be fair. The death of their manager Brian Epstein in August 1967 is one that can be brought up. But for the purpose of this post, I’ll bring up another. The trip to India in 1968. Before they left, they made ‘Hey Bulldog’ and ‘Lady Madonna’. According to their engineer, everyone seemed to be in great spirits. The group went to India for their Transcendental Meditation course under the tutelage of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. Then they came back to the UK, began work on what became the White Album, and as we all know, they weren’t liking each other quite as much anymore. A few things happened on that India trip, one in particular was the inspiration behind the song in question today.

‘Sexy Sadie’ was originally titled ‘Maharishi’. John Lennon wrote the song and had every intention of releasing it under the original name before George Harrison implored him not to and provided the alternative title. While on the TM course in India, Lennon heard through the grapevine that the Maharishi had been making moves on some of the female students, acting in a very un-Maharishi way. Turned out this may have not even been true and was just a rumour started by a hanger-on of the band. Nevertheless, Lennon was angered and immediately disillusioned, completely lost faith in whatever he felt he was being taught and wrote the song in response. Lack of better words, it’s a diss track. So whenever the phrase ‘Sexy Sadie’ is said, just replace it with ‘Maharishi’ and you gain a little more understanding.

I really enjoy the way John Lennon sings this track. Think it may be one of his most underrated performances. The vocal melody’s one that continuously rises and fall, contrasting between his falsetto and his natural voice, stretching out syllables and elongating vowel sounds seemingly with little effort. And alongside you get the backing vocals of him, McCartney and Harrison throughout, piping up with “wah-wah-wahs” and “see-see-sees”, culminating in the part where they all sing the last line, which in turn falls into the song’s outro. That was also meant to be much longer, by the way. Must have been edited down for space on the LP. You can hear the track’s unedited ending section below. Would have been cool if it was left in, but the song’s great all the same. And that’s White Album out of here. No more songs to come. But click on the little “white album” tag below and you can read about all the songs I like from there.