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The Beatles released an album cover that caused a major uproar. Now, it’s nearly impossible to find copies of it.
In 1966, The Beatles released the album Yesterday and Today, which had a cover so controversial that their record label pulled it. As a result, copies with the original image, which features the band surrounded by pieces of raw meat and decapitated baby dolls, are very difficult to find. One copy is currently up for auction and will sell for thousands of dollars.
The Beatles put out a controversial album cover
The Beatles released Yesterday and Today. The original album cover featured the band dressed as butchers, surrounded by raw meat and decapitated baby dolls. The image was reportedly the band’s statement against the Vietnam War. John Lennon said they also did it because they were bored.
“It was inspired by our boredom and resentment at having to do another photo session and another Beatles thing. We were sick to death of it,” he said in the book All We Are Saying: The Last Major Interview with John Lennon and Yoko Ono. “Also, the photographer was into [Salvador] Dalí and making surreal pictures. That combination produced that cover.”
The image did not go over well. Retailers refused to stock the album, so Capitol Records recalled all copies and promotional material.
The Beatles’ cover is selling for thousands of dollars at auction
After the controversy, Capitol ordered production plants to paste the new cover over the original image. Copies of the album that never had the image pasted over them are called “first state” covers and are extremely rare. One is currently up for auction with RR Auction.
“In fine to very fine condition, with radio station call letters (“KISN”) inked to the back cover and a small, quarter-inch edge fracture at the lower left corner,” reads the description. “Accompanied by a photocopy of Capitol’s recall notice for the controversial cover … First-state versions are among the most desirable and elusive of all Beatles collectibles.”
The “remarkably well-preserved” album sold for $12,501.
George Harrison had regrets about the photo
While Lennon and Paul McCartney pushed back against critics of the cover, George Harrison said he regretted it. He hadn’t even liked it when they were taking the photos.
“I think [Beatles manager] Brian Epstein had met a photographer in Australia called Robert Whitaker, who came to London where Brian introduced him to us,” he said, per The Beatles Anthology. “He was avant-garde and took a lot of photographs. He set up a photo session which I never liked personally at the time.”
Harrison found the image to be in poor taste but didn’t think the band was fully responsible for it.
“I thought it was gross, and I also thought it was stupid,” he said. “Sometimes we all did stupid things, thinking it was cool or hip when it was naive and dumb, and that was one of them. But again, it was a case of being put in a situation where one is obliged, as part of a unit, to cooperate.”
