Yesterday...And Today

Background

1966 would be the year the Beatles had slipped a notch from their popularity. On their 1966 world tour, martial arts students protested having the Beatles perform at Budo Kahn judo arena in Tokyo, Japan because they didn't want Western rock and roll musicians playing at a sacred judo arena. In the Phillipines, President Ferdinand Marcos' wife Imelda invited the Beatles to a presidential luncheon in their honor. When Brian Epstein sent a note refusing the social gathering, all hell broke loose. T.V. stations showed crying children waiting for the Beatles arrival only to be told they weren't coming. Television reports stated that the Beatles had "slighted" Mrs. Marcos by refusing her luncheon invitiation. As a result, the Beatles decided to leave the Phillipines quickly, but not before being ruffed up and manhandled by airport security and throngs of angry fans.

In America, a teen magazine got ahold of an interview John Lennon did for Maureen Cleave of the London Evening Standard. In the interview, John mentions how christianity is shrinking and that the Beatles are more popular than Jesus. This starts a backlash in the U.S. where Beatles albums are burned and destroyed particularly in the southern "bible belt" states. There are death threats against the Beatles as an American tour looms.

While all this was going on, Capitol records released Yesterday..And Today, a collection of Beatles songs culminating from older Beatles albums in England as well as material from the yet-to-be-released Revolver album. Beatles fans were shocked when they caught a glimpse of the album's cover. The cover depicts the Beatles in butcher outfits with raw meat and decapitated baby dolls strewn around (See picture, top left). After public outcry over the album, Capitol Records decided to recall these "butcher cover" sleeves and change the cover with another pose of the Beatles standing (and sitting) around a steamer trunk (See picture, top right). In fact, Capitol was in such a hurry to get these albums back out in the stores that some of the butcher covers had the trunk photo pasted over them.

Today, the original butcher cover is probably the most sought after Beatles collectors item. Some fans even realized they had a butcher cover album disguised as a steamer trunk cover and tried to steam off the trunk cover to get to the butcher cover.

It has been said that the Beatles posed for this controversial photo on purpose to serve as a commentary for Capitol records and their tearing apart their carefully crafted British albums in order to make more "product" in the U.S. Paul described the cover as "tasty meat" and called detractors to the cover "soft". Despite the covers, Yesterday...And Today went to the top of all the major record charts.