Despite being North America’s only source for such great songs as “If I Needed Someone” and “I’m Only Sleeping” for nearly 20 years, the Beatles’ 1966 release Yesterday… and Today is mostly, if at all, remembered for its album cover. It featured John, Paul, George, and Ringo wearing white butcher’s smocks with various cuts of meat and partially burned plastic dolls strewn about them, all while the boys gleefully smiled. Various accounts say that the Beatles’ manager, Brian Epstein, and the head of Capitol Records at the time, Alan Livingston, had concerns about the use of this decidedly unusual picture, but for whatever reason, some copies were still sent out to disc jockeys and some stores ahead of the planned release date. It didn’t take long for the backlash.
According to a letter issued by Capitol, a “sampling of public opinion” said that the image was “subject to misinterpretation”. Some DJs reportedly refused to play the album on air, and teen magazine KYA Beat referred to it as “the s(l)ick humor of the Beatles” in an issue that chose to do a plain red cover instead of the picture. Capitol quickly had the Beatles do another photo shoot, in which the group posed around a steamer trunk. You can literally see the looks of disdain on their faces. One of those pictures then became the new album cover, which was pasted on over the remaining “butcher” copies that weren’t already destroyed. The result was that Yesterday… and Today became the only Beatles album to lose money for Capitol.
To this very day, rumors abound that the Beatles intended the offending photo as a statement about the Vietnam War, or that it was their protest against the way Capitol edited and re-arranged their albums. The truth seems to be that all of it was photographer Robert Whitaker’s idea. Ironically, the same type of people who took offense at the photo would’ve probably loved the concept behind it. Whitaker was shocked by crazed fan-reaction to the Beatles, whom he felt were “not an illusion, not something to be worshiped, but people as real and substantial as a piece of wood”. Comparing it all to the Biblical account of the Israelites’ worshiping a golden calf as the ten commandments were being written, Whitaker originally intended to give the photo a gold colored background and illustrated silver jeweled halos over the Beatles’ heads. Coincidentally, John Lennon’s “bigger than Jesus” comments started another controversy about a month later.
But the butcher-album “carve-up”, as Disc magazine referred to it that summer, was the first time the Beatles were involved in a real controversy. In the eyes of the media, they had lost their innocence forever. Perhaps that’s the main reason why the album is such a collector’s item today. John Lennon once joked that an original copy could be sold for $11 million, but a near-mint stereo copy that was featured in an episode of Antiques Roadshow sold for just over $10,500 at auction recently. There are websites devoted to the entire controversy, how to peel a “trunk cover” off of a “butcher cover”, or alternately, why they should be left on, and tie-in merchandise ranging from posters, matchbooks, and reproduction covers, but the music is rarely ever mentioned. http://www.popmatters.com/feature/115699-yesterday…and-today-today/
I remember this. It was during my last year of high school and first year of college. We got caught one night in our college dorm when someone brought us the album “Abby Road”. If you ever had an experience that shifted you so greatly that you can go back to that moment years later, that was the type of experience that was. We were so spooked that night and we actually thought we saw Paul’s ghostly shadow in the hallway as it passed the window on the first floor of our dormitory. We huddled around and listened to the music being played backwards, which had to be done manually and we cringed in horror! How could this be? It took us a few days to settle down, but there were a few die-hards who continued to persist in the truth of the conspiracy, so much so that the album became “taboo” and we stopped listening to it. Eventually we went on with our lives, but that day never left me, nor did I feel the same about the Beatles or Paul anymore.
That they cared so much about people killing themselves over his “presumed” death is a bit of a stretch for me, although there were some reports of that when Michael Jackson died, but seriously… that part of the story almost made me stop watching the film. I watched it though, because I was there, and I wanted to see what other unknown clues they had. All in all, the film was quite interesting. Is it true? Well, maybe someone will come forward with the real evidence in time, then again, maybe not. Countless secrets have met the grave, and with Paul being the Only Beatle left, and he’s 80 years old.. Well if he breathed a word about it, we may be calling it a death bed confession.
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Sofia Smallstorm & Mike Williams – The Death Of Paul McCartney – September 11, 1966 (Sept 2016)
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HIGHWAY 61 ENTERTAINMENT – PAUL MCCARTNEY REALLY IS DEAD:
THE LAST TESTAMENT OF GEORGE HARRISON |
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Paul is dead documentary George Harrison #Illuminati #Satan #Beatles
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ForbiddenKnowledgeTV Alexandra Bruce March 6, 2015
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Is Pizza-Gate A Pysops? What’s Really Behind It? In this video are featured those very weird pics of the Beatles.
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HIGHWAY 61 ENTERTAINMENT – PAUL MCCARTNEY REALLY IS DEAD: THE LAST TESTAMENT OF GEORGE HARRISON
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Mark Devlin w/Mike Williams – Paul Is Dead – The Memoirs of Billy Shears (Nov 2016)
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The Beatles | The Winged Beatle | Mind controlling the masses with The Beatles
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ForbiddenKnowledgeTV Alexandra Bruce March 6, 2015
In this mockumentary spoof of “Paul-Is-Dead” theories, a mysterious voice on the tape reveals a secret Beatles history, chronicling McCartney’s fatal car accident, the cover up, and dozens of never-before-revealed clues, exposing “Paul McCartney” as an impostor!
Highway 61 Entertainment has produced this unauthorized documentary that includes this newly unearthed evidence.
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Fear not, Beatles fans! The original interview quotes are from a satirical news website, Macca is still very much alive (unless you know something, we don’t).
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‘Yesterday… and Today’ Today
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Inside Beatles’ Bloody, Banned ‘Butcher’ Cover
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The Beatles Triptych To Ride
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