The Beatles Album Covers – Yesterday and Today

This album has two names really, since it contained the single Yesterday, it is also named “Yesterday”…and Today with a distinction to the song it features.   

The most controversial cover of all the Beatles’ works, this Yesterday and Today album cover has led to some of the most valuable collector pieces of all time. Recently a cover still in its cellophane seal, sold at auction for $39,000!   

In 1966, photographer Robert Whitaker invited the group into his studio for a series of photographs, mostly to be used for promotional materials. Known for their enjoyment of black humour, and tired of the ordinary photos used up until this point, the boys agreed to being dressed in white lab coats. Sitting amid a display of bloodied headless naked dolls, the heads, and an assortment of fresh meat, they are smiling.   

The cover was nicknamed the “Butcher cover” and The Beatles were later quoted as saying the photo was used as their statement about war, the war in Vietnam particular, and immediately drew immense criticism; the first the band had received that was critical and in many cases, negative.   

In later interviews, George Harrison, (later a vegetarian) was quoted as saying he found the photo quite stupid and gross. There have been accounts that John Lennon thought the cover was a strong commentary on his feeling that the record company was “butchering” the English market versions of their albums to make more money in the U.S. market.   

But before the record company, Capitol, issued formal apologies, the album was released in limited supply, as typical of the industry, in the UK and the U.S. Quickly, some reviewers and disc jockey received advanced copies. Then, it was immediately recalled due to complaints from distributors. The controversy led the record producers to issue a new photo, which was glued over the old covers. The new photo had the boys posed around an open steamer trunk with Paul sitting inside.   

Capitol Record issued a directive to have all original copies destroyed. Some were sent off to landfills in some cities. But what followed was a market of three different covers: an original in its sealed wrap, the new glued over copy, and the original with the glued over copy removed. The most valuable of these being the “first state” issue which has commanded some very high collector’s prices.   

Album Cover Designer:   

Photographer Robert Whitaker took the photo of The Beatles in his studio. He had planned for the photos to become part of a conceptual piece he entitled: A Somnambulant Adventure.   

Robert Whitaker said “I had toured quite a lot of the world with them by then, and I was continually amused by the public adulation of four people.”   

The butcher photos are printed in Whitaker’s book The Unseen Beatles. “I mean what you want to read into it is entirely up to you,” Whitaker said. “I was trying to show that the Beatles were flesh and blood.”   

Later, with the photographers consent, it was Paul McCartney who submitted the “butcher photo” to be considered for the album cover. It was McCartney who put forth that the photo was “our comment on the war”. 

  

Robert Whitaker (Photographer)   

You can download The Beatles album, Yesterday and Today or get the album on CD or Vinyl from Amazon here.