Robert Bunter: The White Album is in large part about The Beatles themselves (as indicated by the record's actual title, which is The Beatles). Previous efforts certainly dealt with aspects of the group's real lives, leavened to a greater or lesser degree by poetic lyricism - "Taxman," "I'm Only Sleeping," "Fixing A Hole," even "Penny Lane" and "Strawberry Fields Forever." Still, the two LP's previous to this (Sgt. Pepper's and Magical Mystery Tour) both explored far-fetched alternate identities and messages of universal cosmic significance set in a colorful fantasy world populated by rocking-horse people and marshmallow pies. Now it's 1968 and all of a sudden we've got a stark view of these hairy men's real life backstage after the curtains fall. Plugged-in fans were startled to realize that these songs were about Paul's sheepdog, John's mom, Mia Farrow's sister, Eric Clapton's sweet tooth, and meanwhile Yoko's over here in the corner staring at me. The stripped-down production and minimalist greyscale cover text added to the dour mood. "Sexy Sadie," while graced with an utterly beguiling melody and emotionally affecting Lennon falsetto, remains at its core an airing of dirty, personal laundry.
Richard Furnstein: Lennon is certainly more direct here than he was in the Technicolor swirl of the 1967 offerings. The stripped-down approach of the Esher Demos provided a dramatic shift from the Eggman filtration system of the psychedelic era. Break out the 120-grit and strip the careless swirls from your instruments. You were resplendent in that madcap frock, but the loose sand-colored hemp shirt and leather necklace suits you well in this new age. The change was welcomed by our beloved Walrus, as he produced his strongest and most unique batch of songs yet for The Beatles. You get the sense that John's songwriting explosion in Rishikesh was his attempt to refocus his creativity to become (if needed) a singular light for the group. All could drink and eat from his expanding mind and desperate claws. He found his muse in Yoko and finally had his fragile ego confirmed in a helicopter ride with the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. To think, mankind was given the pure beauty of "Julia” (pay no mind to the creeping figures of Polythene Pam and Mr. Mustard) from fever dreams on a hard Indian cot. Take this brother, may it serve you well.
Robert Bunter: That's a totally accurate description. I'm going to provide a bit of backstory at this point. The Beatles went off to India to study with the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, a giggling guru preaching a Westernized, user-friendly form of spiritual meditation for dilettantes and businessmen looking for shortcuts. Typically, John was the most ardent convert of the four, sitting cross-legged in his little hut for hours a day in a fugue state which he later described as a mental breakdown. Of course, being John, that was just his idea of a great time - remember, he'd spent most of the previous two years paralyzed by nightmarish acid-fueled visions. But as hard as he fell for Maharishi's line, it was only a matter of time before the bloom was off the rose for John, who spent most of his too-short life flitting from one God-figure to another (Presley, McCartney, Dylan, Leary, Maharishi, Janov, Rubin), only to renounce them after they failed to deliver what he really needed, which was his parents' love (I left Ono off that list, because that's a more complicated deal). There is no fiercer critic than a former apostle stung by betrayal, and when John got word that Maharishi might not be as high-minded as his sermons had implied (despite vows of celibacy, he was apparently making it with various female students during private "advanced meditation sessions"), he decided to pack up his trunk and storm out. On the car ride back to the airport with George he began to compose a stinging song in his head called "Maharishi," which George persuaded him to re-title "Sexy Sadie."
Richard Furnstein: "Sexy Sadie" is a surprisingly tame lyrical put down from the prickly one in the Beatles. Consider the misogynistic and seething tone directed at lovers on Rubber Soul, the contempt directed at the idiotic common people of "Good Morning, Good Morning" nervously scattering the streets playing their miserable roles as workers, and the more pointed loathing featured in the darker rooms in the Imagine LP. It's clear in each of the songs that Lennon was filtering his own self-loathing into a sarcastic and often times cruel view of others. The transgressions of the Maharishi are dismissed as mere technicalities ("you broke the rules" and "how did you know?") and the punishment for his actions are vague and inconsequential ("you'll get yours yet"). It's a much softer view than the arson-as-revenge fantasy interpretation of "Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)."
The "one sunny day the world was waiting for a lover" part is the only time that Lennon really reflects on his own insecurity and his never-ending search for a guru who can show him the light. This songwriting trick was first mined in Lennon’s first golden period, the soundtrack to A Hard Day’s Night. As you ably tracked, Lennon was an orphaned soul searching for parental approval. Lennon is uncharacteristically guarded when he reflects on his pull to the Maharishi and his teachings, summarizing the arrival of the guru into his shattered world as an inevitability. An upper on a sunny day, ensuring all were sufficiently turned on. Who could resist the pull of this force? Lennon suggests they were all playing fools. He clearly hasn't learned a damned thing.
Robert Bunter: Well I'll tell you one thing he'd learned - how to use the basic building blocks of the primal/crucial 1950s rock and roll chord changes which had ignited his childhood to construct something menacing and strange enough to suit the dark and complex man he'd grown into by 1968. The most obvious example is the terrifying "Bang-bang, shoot-shoot" coda on "Happiness Is A Warm Gun," but harmonically, "Sexy Sadie" is cut from the same cloth as "I'm So Tired." In both cases the chord changes are close enough to evoke the familiar, comforting yearning of straight doo wop, but John adds interest and malice with descending chromatic movements. Have you ever listened to Ronettes 45s while under the influence of mind-altering drugs? Well, John probably did, and "Sexy Sadie" is probably what they sounded like.
Richard Furnstein: It’s interesting that John seemed most comfortable when he could lean on this teddy boy origins and toss a few joker chords around a well-worn Spector skeleton. Maybe he wasn’t the towering genius with clouds in his eyes and a blueprint for eternal peace. Perhaps he was nothing more than a wiry fiend, knocking out piles of amazing songs in the lingering flatulence of his Rishikesh tent because he couldn’t just goof out on zonk pills and stare at a television. Of course, Beatles experts (like me!) will tell you he was somewhere between the two extremes. Those same experts will then play you a demo version of “Out The Blue” from the Mind Games album and tell you it’s a disgrace that the Lennon Trust hasn’t released every second of music that this Godhead has created. Seriously, that tune could be on the White Album, Bunter!
Robert Bunter: The only "Lennon Trust" that I recognize is my trust that you will inevitably bring the conversation back to that soggy Lennon solo offering. Of course it sounds like it could have been on the White Album, poor John was reworking the moves he stole from Donovan. I've had to listen to you babble about that sadsack blues sludge for decades now. Welcome back to the blog, dear readers. I'm already tired of talking to this guy.
