Song · Live covers
Sexy Sadie
John Lennon's parting shot at the Maharishi, written with his bags packed in Rishikesh.
1968
rishikesh
John Lennon wrote it in Rishikesh, in India, where the Beatles were studying with the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, and it was the last thing he wrote there, when the group had their bags packed and were leaving. It came after Alexis Mardas, who ran the group's electronics company, told Lennon and Harrison that the Maharishi had made a sexual advance towards Mia Farrow. Lennon wanted to call it “Maharishi” and changed the title at George Harrison's request.
I just called him ‘Sexy Sadie’ instead of ‘Maharishi what have you done’. I was just using the situation to write a song, rather calculatingly but also to express what I felt.
john lennon · interview with david sheff, 1980
Asked by the Maharishi why he was going, Lennon said, “Well, if you're so cosmic, you'll know why.” Harrison, Paul McCartney and Lennon's wife, Cynthia, all came to think Mardas had invented the story. In 2018 Farrow herself described to Elle being harassed by the Maharishi, and the “two surprisingly male, hairy arms” going round her.
1997
karma police
No Radiohead performance of it is on record, and no setlist on this site has them playing it. Robert Webb, writing in the Independent in 2006, found the plummeting chord progression of “Karma Police” resembling it.
sources5
- David Sheff, All We Are Saying: The Last Major Interview with John Lennon and Yoko Ono.
- Jann Wenner, Lennon Remembers.
- Wikipedia, “Sexy Sadie”, for Rishikesh and the song being written as the group packed to leave.
- Robert Webb, “Story of the Song: ‘Karma Police’ Radiohead (1997)”, The Independent, 15 September 2006, for the chord progression.
- “Mia Farrow takes an unflinching look at her past in the wake of the #MeToo movement”, Elle, 10 October 2018.