Song · Live covers
Sexy Sadie
Lennon's parting shot at the Maharishi, attached to Radiohead by fan lists and by nothing else.
1968
rishikesh
Lennon wrote it in India, the last thing he wrote there, after Alexis Mardas told the group that the Maharishi had made a sexual advance towards Mia Farrow. He wanted to call it “Maharishi” and changed the title at George Harrison's request.
That was inspired by Maharishi. I wrote it when we had our bags packed and were leaving… 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
Asked by the Maharishi why he was going, he said: “Well, if you're so cosmic, you'll know why.” Harrison, McCartney and Cynthia Lennon all came to think Mardas had invented the story. In 2018 Farrow described being harassed by the Maharishi herself: “Suddenly I became aware of two surprisingly male, hairy arms going around me.”
the claim
unverified
This song is in the catalogue because fan-compiled cover lists put it there. No reliable source documents Radiohead or Thom Yorke playing it. It stays listed and flagged rather than quietly deleted, because an archive should be able to show its own gaps.
sources3
- David Sheff, All We Are Saying: The Last Major Interview with John Lennon and Yoko Ono.
- Jann Wenner, Lennon Remembers.
- “Mia Farrow takes an unflinching look at her past in the wake of the #MeToo movement”, Elle, 10 October 2018.