Everybody's Got Something to Hide Except Me and My Monkey

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Everybody's Got Something To Hide Except For Me and My Monkey is a song off The Beatles' 1968 self-titled album. It was written by John Lennon and credited to Lennon/McCartney.

Contents

Writing

John had written the song about his relationship with Yoko Ono, which was becoming more serious during 1968. "That was just a sort of nice line that I made into a song," said John Lennon, "It was about me and Yoko. Everybody seemed to be paranoid except for us two, who were in the glow of love. Everything is clear and open when you're in love. Everybody was sort of tense around us - you know, 'What is she doing here at the session? Why is she with him?' All this sort of madness is going on around us because we just happened to want to be together all the time." Even though the song was written about Yoko, many believed that it was a reference to heroin, which John began using that year. Having a monkey on your back was 1940's jazz slang for having a heroin addiction, leading some to believe the song was about heroin. It didn't help matters that the song contained the line "the deeper you go, the higher you fly." John and Yoko claimed to have started injecting heroin to get away from the press attention they were getting for being together. Paul said, "He was getting into harder drugs than we'd been into and so his songs were taking on more references to heroin. Until that point we had made rather mild, oblique references to pot or LSD. Now John started talking about fixes and monkeys and it was a harder terminology which the rest of us weren't into. We were disappointed that he was getting into heroin because we didn't really see how we could help him. We just hoped it wouldn't go too far. In actual fact, he did end up clean but this was the period when he was on it. It was a tough period for John, but often that adversity and that craziness can lead to good art, as I think it did in this case."

Recording

The song was first recorded in demo form in May 1968, when a demo was recorded at Kinfauns, George's bungalow in Esher. At the time, it was more of a bluesy song rather than the hard-rocking song it would become. This demo appears on several bootlegs. It was first recorded under the title "Untitled" on June 26, 1968 at Abbey Road Studios. On this date, several rehearsal takes were played, all recorded, in case the Beatles decided to do proper takes. However, they never did do any formal takes, saving it for June 27, the next day. Six takes were recorded, the last deemed the best, which was overdubbed onto with lead guitars, handbell, and shaker. A reduction mix was made, which also sped up the song, changing the length from 3:07 to 2:29. In th final mix, it would be sped up even more. on July 23, John added the lead vocals. Also, backing vocals and handclap overdubs were recorded. A mono mix was made, with a stereo mix made on October 12.

Personnel

The Beatles

Production

Available Versions

Available On

Source

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