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

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Album This song officially appears on the The Beatles (Mono) Official album.

Timeline This song has been officially released in 1968

Sessions This song has been recorded during the following sessions

The Esher recordings (Late May 1968)
Recording "Everybody's Got Something to Hide Except Me and My Monkey" (Jun 26, 1968)
Recording "Everybody's Got Something to Hide Except Me and My Monkey" (Jun 27, 1968)
Recording "Everybody's Got Something to Hide Except Me and My Monkey" (Jul 01, 1968)
Recording and mixing "Everybody's Got Something To Hide...", mixing "Good Night" (Jul 23, 1968)
Mixing "Everybody's Got Something To Hide...", "Helter Skelter", "Mother Nature's Son", "Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da", "Long Long (Oct 12, 1968)

Everybody Out There

Everybody's Trying To Be My Baby

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Song facts

From Wikipedia:

“Everybody’s Got Something to Hide Except Me and My Monkey” is a song by the English rock group the Beatles from their 1968 album The Beatles (also known as “the White Album”). The song was written by John Lennon and credited to Lennon–McCartney. Its title is the longest of any song released by the group.

Background

“Everybody’s Got Something to Hide Except Me and My Monkey” was written about Lennon’s future wife, Yoko Ono. Lennon said of the song:

That was just a sort of nice line that I made into a song. 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.

Many listeners, including Paul McCartney, believed that the song was about heroin, as the term “monkey” is often associated with the drug. Although Lennon and Ono used the drug, McCartney, as well as Harrison and Starr, did not, with McCartney later saying, “It was a harder terminology, which the rest of us weren’t into.”

Recording

Lennon’s working title for the composition was “Come on, Come on“. An unreleased demo of the song, recorded in George Harrison’s Esher home in May 1968, features all-acoustic instrumentation, and a vocal sung in a more Bob Dylan-like spoken word style than the released version.

The released version of the song was recorded at EMI’s Abbey Road Studios on 27 June 1968, and an overdub session on 1 July. Final stereo mixing was completed on 12 October.

Paul McCartney in "Many Years From Now", by Barry Miles:

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.

Paul McCartney: Many Years From Now • Barry Miles

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From The Usenet Guide to Beatles Recording Variations:

[a] stereo 12 Oct 1968.
UK: Apple PCS 7068 white album 1968.
US: Apple SWBO 101 white album 1968.
CD: EMI CDP 7 46443 2 white album 1987.

[b] mono 12 Oct 1968.
UK: Apple PMC 7068 white album 1968.

The screaming after “come on” in the last verse is different in [a] and [b].

Last updated on August 20, 2016

Lyrics

Come on, come on
Come on, come on
Come on, it's such a joy
Come on, it's such a joy
Come on, let's take it easy
Come on, let's take it easy

Take it easy
Take it easy
Everybody's got something to hide
Except for me and my monkey

The deeper you go the higher you fly
The higher you fly the deeper you go
So come on, come on

Come on, it's such a joy
Come on, it's such a joy
Come on, let's make it easy
Come on, let's take it easy

Take it easy
Take it easy
Everybody's got something to hide
Except for me and my monkey

Your inside is out when your outside is in
Your outside is in when your inside is out
So come on, come on

Come on, it's such a joy
Come on, it's such a joy
Come on, let's make it easy
Come on, let's make it easy

Make it easy
Take it easy
Everybody's got something to hide
Except for me and my monkey

Come on, come on, come on