“Everybody’s Got Something to Hide Except for Me and My Monkey” (1968) – The Beatles * Written by John Lennon and Paul McCartney * LP: The Beatles * Produced by George Martin * Label: Apple
It’s likely that the well-read John Lennon, who once sang “turn off your mind,” had come across the notion of the human psyche as the “wild monkey,” swinging from branch to branch, and a challenge to control. This image rose up in the Buddhist Samyutta Nikāya scriptures and came up again in Swami Vivekenanda’s Raja-Yoga, where the influential Vedantist cites an “old story” about the restless monkey, possessed by the demon of desire, and stung by the scorpion of jealousy, as an apt description of that intellect that supposedly gives the human species an edge over all other living things. How else could the most outspoken Beatle stick it to the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi (about whom he’d written the disappointed indictment “Sexy Sadie”) than to celebrate his own wild monkey, who’s got “nothing to hide”? But then there’s that business about his lower monkey, who became unhidden on Two Virgins, two weeks before the white album came out.