Controversial Beatles cover posing as butchers with decapitated babies goes on sale
An incredibly rare copy of a controversial Beatles album cover in which the Fab Four posed as butchers draped with decapitated babies and chunks of meat has emerged for sale for £4,500.
The original cover of The Beatles' album Yesterday and Today caused outrage on its release in 1966 - but by that point US record company Capitol had already printed 750,000 copies of it.
The Beatles are said to have submitted the gruesome image for use on the cover in retaliation for Capitol insisting on the release of the album, which was made up from leftover tracks from the band's previous two UK releases. Inundated with complaints, the record company soon withdrew the albums but in order to save money they simply stuck another photograph on top of the offending cover.
When word got out among fans of the modification many tried - unsuccessfully - to peel off the new cover to reveal the original image.
A handful of the unmodified covers survived and untouched copies of the original cover known as 'first state' are now prized collectors' items.
The album cover, known among fans as the 'Butcher cover', is owned by a former employee of Capitol Records who worked in the company's mail room.
Source: The Express
