"You've Got to Hide Your Love Away" THE BEATLES

"You've Got to Hide Your Love Away" THE BEATLES

In the spring of 1965, shortly after the birth of his son Julian, John
Lennon took a brief holiday in Barcelona with the Beatles gay manager,
Brian Epstein was clearly enamored of Lennon, and more than one biography
(and a brilliant short film inspired by their specualtion, The Hours and
Times) suggests that there, in Spain, Epstein made a last, valiant effot to consumate their relationship. After they returned, Lennon wrote this ballad.

Although Lennon never addressed the subject, and the song was'nt recroded
until February of 1965 (for the Help soundtrack) gay British
singer/songwriter Tom Robinson was always convinced that it was Lennon's
gift to Epstein - penned form the closeted manager's perpspective. Robinson took its title for his cabaret show of "gay" pop songs.


"How Do You Sleep"? JOHN LENNON

In the wake of the Beatles split, Paul Mccartney adopted a faintly pompous
and condescending attitude toward John and Yoko. When he issued his LP Ram, the cover featured gnetleman farmer Paul hugging a sheep, while in "Too Many People", he sang to his former partner as if he were chucking him under the chin: "You took your lucky break, and broke it in two./Now what can be done for you?"

Lennon responded with venom. With laconic rage he punned off two of Paul's song titles singing, "The inly thing you've done was 'Yesterday',/And since you're gone you're 'Just another day'. With the LP, Lennon included a photo parodying Ram's cover: Lennon hugging an immense hog.

"Sexy Sadie", THE BEATLES

In Febraury 1968, with "Magical Mystery Tour" topping the U.S. charts, the Beatles flew to India to study meditation at the Maharishi Mahesh Yoga's ashram in Rishikesh. Ringo was the first to bail, comparing the place to "a Butkins Holiday camp". By the time a dissilusioned Lenon packed his bags, he was already writing his pointed assault on the bubbly, rotund little holy man. Once he was dubbed Sexy Sadie, it was hard to think of hims as anyone else.


(Source: People's Almanac by: Adam Block. He is a San Francisco based investigative journalist and pop-culture critic whose work has been featured in the London Observer, California magazine, Mother Jones, Image, Parenting and Manshots. He is also a columnists for the Advocate and has
contributed annotaged lists of "homo-negative and pro-homo pop songs" to the Alyson Alamanac)


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