Butcher

The Beatles Yesterday and Today

and the

Butcher Covers

Ok, it happened. I broke down and bought the 1964 Remco Seltaeb soft body dolls, the 6 Franklin Mint bell jar music boxes and an unpeeled mono copy of the Beatles album "Yesterday and Today". It's referred to as a "second state Butcher cover" because it still has the paste-over trunk cover. Now the debate is whether to have it peeled (I won't attempt it myself!) or keep it as a second state cover.

Mono version and the Stereo version

THE FIRST PUBLISHED APPEARANCE OF THE
BUTCHER COVER PHOTO (JUNE 3, 1966)
New Musical Express newspaper, page 2, June 3, 1966 cover date - This is the first public appearance of the infamous Butcher cover photo, printed in England during the last week of May, 1966. The photo was included in an ad by EMI announcing the release of the single Paperback Writer / Rain to be released on June 10, 1966.

This ad was out on June 1st, well BEFORE Capitol shipped the advance copies of the first state "Yesterday"...and Today LPs in The U.S.! The photo EMI used was the same as the Butcher cover LP photo, and was printed in black & white.

This same ad was also published in DISC and MUSIC ECHO the next day, June 4 cover date, making it the second published appearance of the Butcher photo.

THE THIRD PUBLISHED APPEARANCE OF THE BUTCHER COVER PHOTO
(JUNE 11, 1966)

The third printed appearance of a Butcher photo, and the first in color, was its use by DISC and MUSIC ECHO newspaper (publisher - Ray Coleman) in their June 11th issue - as a cover story. They incorrectly promoted the fact that this was the (worldwide) exclusive FIRST ever appearance of the Butcher cover photo (although it would qualify as the first appearance in color, and the first alternate photo published).

What is baffling is why DISC and MUSIC ECHO was provided with an alternate Butcher session photo, as compared to the EMI ad and Capitol album (which was already being printed at the time) - and how they came across it. This raises a couple of questions - why would EMI have used the standard photo for their own ad, yet provide a totally different photo for DISC to use for their cover story? And, did Capitol look at several different poses to choose which one they wanted to use for the LP cover or did EMI supply just the negative for the one that was used?

The 1970s bootleg EP Top of the Pops used the same Butcher cover photo from the DISC and MUSIC ECHO cover. Both had the photo reversed! It has not been printed anywhere since.

Both of the above public printings of the Butcher cover photos caused hardly a stir in England, yet in the U.S. it was just a couple days after the advance copies of the album were mailed out that the controversy erupted.

EMI and/or Capitol used the butcher shot only two more times - by Capitol in 1980 for the inside jacket of the U.S. Rarities album, and in 1986 by EMI for their U.K. 20th anniversary singles picture disc series reissue of Paperback Writer / Rain.

another shot and another

Here's the interesting text that accompanied this cover article in DISC:

BEATLES: WHAT A CARVE-UP!
BEATLES WEEK! There back with a single, Paperback Writer and Rain, out tomorrow (Friday).

BUT WHAT’S THIS? The Beatles as butchers draped with raw meat! Disc and Music Echo’s world exclusive colour picture by Bob Whitaker is the most controversial shot ever of John, Paul, George and Ringo.

THE PLACE: A private studio in Chelsea, London. Whitaker is taking some new pictures of the Beatles, and decides that a new approach is needed.
"I wanted to do a real experiment - people will jump to wrong conclusions about it being sick," says Whitaker. "But the whole thing is based on simplicity - linking four very real people with something real." "I got George to knock some nails into John’s head, and took some sausages along to get some other pictures, dressed them up in white smocks as butchers, and this is the result - the use of the camera as a means of creating situations."
PAUL’S comment after the session: "Very tasty meat!"
GEORGE: "We won’t come to any more of your sick picture sessions"
JOHN: "Oh, we don’t mind doing anything"
RINGO: "We haven’t done pictures like THIS before..."

KYA BEAT Vol. 1 No. 50 July 9, 1966

This KYA Edition of BEAT newspaper featured one of the first print stories after the June 1966 recall of the Butcher cover album. BEAT was evidently afraid to publish the controversial picture on the cover, instead printing it inside on page 9. Featuring only a text headline, this was the first time that a photograph was not used on the cover of this national weekly teen newspaper.

'HELLO DOLLY' FLOPS AS POP ART
Beatles Yank 'Sick' Album Cover

The Beatles' gory album cover, which was their own idea of pop art satire, has been withdrawn by Capitol Records after disc jockeys objected to it. A spokesman for Capitol said a sampling of public opinion indicated the album picture was "mis-interpreted." He said the group quickly decided to replace the controversial cover with a more conventional one, which was released less than a week after the first one. Although more than 200,000 copies of the jacket were released across the United States, most of the copies were returned to Capitol after the announcement of the banning. The questionable covers are now expected to bring astronomical prices as rare collectors' items. The offending picture shows the Beatles dressed in butchers' smocks and festooned with chunks of meat and bones, along with a doll's severed head. The singers wear sadistic grins. The Beatles still haven't made a statement concerning their intentions when they released the first cover. Rumor has it that it is a brilliantly disguised protest, but some have countered that it was just a publicity stunt. In either event, their intentions backfired.

Shown below, the actual ad as it appeared in the paper.

my copy

Two alternate Trunk covers

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