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US Release date : Wednesday, June 15, 1966

Yesterday and Today (Butcher cover - Mono)

By The BeatlesLP • Part of the collection “The Beatles • The original US LPs


Details

  • US release date: Jun 15, 1966
  • Publisher: Capitol
  • Reference: T-2553

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This album was recorded during the following studio sessions:

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Track list

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Side 1

  1. Drive My Car

    Written by Lennon - McCartney

    2:31 • Studio versionB1 • Mono • Mono made from [B] by Capitol

    Paul McCartney : Bass, Lead guitar, Rhythm guitar, Vocals Ringo Starr : Cowbell, Drums John Lennon : Piano, Tambourine, Vocals George Harrison : Guitar, Harmony vocals George Martin : Producer Norman Smith : Recording engineer

    Session Recording: Oct 13, 1965 • Studio EMI Studios, Studio Two, Abbey Road

    Session Mixing: Oct 26, 1965 • Studio EMI Studios, Studio Two, Abbey Road

  2. I'm Only Sleeping

    Written by Lennon - McCartney

    3:03 • Studio versionA • Mono

    Paul McCartney : Backing vocals, Bass Ringo Starr : Drums John Lennon : Acoustic rhythm guitar, Vocals George Harrison : Backing vocals, Lead guitar George Martin : Producer Geoff Emerick : Recording engineer

    Session Recording: Apr 27, 1966 • Studio EMI Studios, Studio Three, Abbey Road

    Session Overdubs: Apr 29, May 5, May 6, 1966 • Studio EMI Studios, Studio Three, Abbey Road

    Session Mixing: May 12, 1966 • Studio EMI Studios, Studio Three, Abbey Road

  3. Nowhere Man

    Written by Lennon - McCartney

    2:44 • Studio versionA • Mono

    Paul McCartney : Bass, Harmony vocals Ringo Starr : Drums John Lennon : Acoustic rhythm guitar, Lead guitar, Vocals George Harrison : Harmony vocals, Lead guitar George Martin : Producer Norman Smith : Recording engineer

    Session Recording: Oct 21, 1965 • Studio EMI Studios, Studio Two, Abbey Road

    Session Recording: Oct 22, 1965 • Studio EMI Studios, Studio Two, Abbey Road

    Session Mixing: Oct 25, 1965 • Studio EMI Studios, Studio Two, Abbey Road

  4. Dr. Robert

    Written by Lennon - McCartney

    2:17 • Studio versionA • Mono

    Paul McCartney : Backing vocals, Bass Ringo Starr : Drums John Lennon : Harmonium, Rhythm guitar, Vocals George Harrison : Backing vocals, Lead guitar, Maracas George Martin : Producer Geoff Emerick : Recording engineer

    Session Recording: Apr 17, 1966 • Studio EMI Studios, Studio Two, Abbey Road

    Session Overdubs: Apr 19, 1966 • Studio EMI Studios, Studio Two, Abbey Road

    Session Mixing: May 12, 1966 • Studio EMI Studios, Studio Three, Abbey Road

  5. Yesterday

    Written by Lennon - McCartney

    2:07 • Studio versionA • Mono

    Paul McCartney : Guitar, Vocals George Martin : Producer Norman Smith : Recording engineer Tony Gilbert : Violin Sidney Sax : Violin Kenneth Essex : Viola Francesc Gabarró Solé : Cello

    Session Recording: Jun 14, 1965 • Studio EMI Studios, Studio Two, Abbey Road

    Session Mixing: Jun 17, 1965 • Studio EMI Studios, Studio Two, Abbey Road

  6. Act Naturally

    Written by Johnny Russell, Voni Morrison

    2:31 • Studio versionA • Mono

    Paul McCartney : Bass, Harmony vocals Ringo Starr : Drums, Sticks, Vocals John Lennon : Acoustic rhythm guitar George Harrison : Lead guitar George Martin : Producer Norman Smith : Recording engineer

    Session Recording: Jun 17, 1965 • Studio EMI Studios, Studio Two, Abbey Road

    Session Mixing: Jun 18, 1965 • Studio EMI Studios, Studio Two, Abbey Road

Side 2

  1. And Your Bird Can Sing

    Written by Lennon - McCartney

    2:03 • Studio versionA • Mono

    Paul McCartney : Backing vocals, Bass, Handclaps, Lead guitar Ringo Starr : Drums, Handclaps, Tambourine John Lennon : Handclaps, Rhythm guitar, Vocals George Harrison : Backing vocals, Handclaps, Lead guitar George Martin : Producer Geoff Emerick : Recording engineer

    Session Recording: Apr 26, 1966 • Studio EMI Studios, Studio Two, Abbey Road

    Session Mixing: May 12, 1966 • Studio EMI Studios, Studio Three, Abbey Road

  2. If I Needed Someone

    Written by George Harrison

    2:23 • Studio versionA • Mono

    Paul McCartney : Bass, Harmony vocals Ringo Starr : Drums, Tambourine John Lennon : Harmony vocals, Rhythm guitar George Harrison : 12-string electric guitar, Vocals George Martin : Producer Norman Smith : Recording engineer

    Session Recording: Oct 16, 1965 • Studio EMI Studios, Studio Two, Abbey Road

    Session Recording: Oct 18, 1965 • Studio EMI Studios, Studio Two, Abbey Road

    Session Mixing: Oct 25, 1965 • Studio EMI Studios, Studio Two, Abbey Road

  3. We Can Work It Out

    Written by Lennon - McCartney

    2:17 • Studio versionA • Mono

    Paul McCartney : Bass, Vocals Ringo Starr : Drums John Lennon : Acoustic rhythm guitar, Harmonium, Vocals George Harrison : Tambourine George Martin : Producer Norman Smith : Recording engineer

    Session Recording: Oct 20, 1965 • Studio EMI Studios, Studio Two, Abbey Road

    Session Mixing: Oct 28, 1965 • Studio EMI Studios, Studio Two, Abbey Road

    Session Overdubs & mixing: Oct 29, 1965 • Studio EMI Studios, Studio Two, Abbey Road

  4. What Goes On

    Written by Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, John Lennon

    2:48 • Studio versionA • Mono

    Paul McCartney : Bass, Harmony vocals Ringo Starr : Drums, Vocals John Lennon : Harmony vocals, Rhythm guitar George Harrison : Lead guitar George Martin : Producer Norman Smith : Recording engineer

    Session Recording: Nov 04, 1965 • Studio EMI Studios, Studio Two, Abbey Road

    Session Mixing: Nov 09, 1965 • Studio EMI Studios, Room 65, Abbey Road

  5. Day Tripper

    Written by Lennon - McCartney

    2:56 • Studio versionB • Mono

    Paul McCartney : Bass, Vocals Ringo Starr : Drums, Tambourine John Lennon : Lead guitar, Rhythm guitar, Vocals George Harrison : Lead guitar, Vocals George Martin : Producer Norman Smith : Recording engineer

    Session Recording: Oct 16, 1965 • Studio EMI Studios, Studio Two, Abbey Road

    Session Mixing: Oct 29, 1965 • Studio EMI Studios, Studio Two, Abbey Road


See Yesterday and Today (Mono)


I don’t think I ever quarrelled with them musically at all. The only time I ever really came to blows with them was over something quite different, which was a record sleeve. It was one that was never issued here. They were dressed up as butchers, and it came out in America. It was their idea of a joke.

George Martin – From interview with Melody Maker, August 21, 1971

We took the pictures in London at one of those photo sessions. By then we were really sort of beginning to hate it. A photo session was a big ordeal, and you had to try and look normal, and you didn’t feel it. And the photographer was a bit of a surrealist, you know? And he brought along all these babies and pieces of meat and doctors’ coats, so we really got into it, and that’s how we felt, eurgh! So we sort of — I especially — pushed for it to be an album cover, just to break the image, you know?

John Lennon – From John Lennon on the Dennis Elsas Show, WNEW-FM, 28 Sept 1974.

From In the United States, the album Yesterday… and Today – The Beatles History (beatles-chronology.ru)
From MOJO November 2001

Beatles put firm in a dilemma

A change of mind by the Beatles has put a major US record company in a big dilemma. The company would gladly have paid a fortune for a machine to rip records out of their covers and put them in new wrappers this past week. What happened? A little joke left the record company’s executives grinning rather grimly.

The Beatles sent a photograph from London to grace their new album, “Yesterday and Today,” with the word that this was the cover they wanted.

Picture the Beatles, each widely grinning. wearing stained white butcher’s smocks, their figures draped with dismembered doll torsos and assorted cuts of meat, captured in living colour. The company muttered “no” several dozen times when the picture reached them, but they couldn’t say no too firmly and Brian Epstein and his four charges prevailed.

About one million copies of the album were pressed at the factory and nearly as many album covers had been run off. Then the Beatles’ organisation decided to withdraw the covers from the market and substitute a milder form of art.

Little wonder the company is in a panic.

From Evening Post – June 20, 1966
From Evening Post – June 20, 1966

Red, dead meat Beatles pic costs £25,000!

FIRST, of course, there’s been a great row over the BEATLE album cover with the lumps of red, dead, winking meat. As you may have read, Capitol called in all the covers and destroyed them. Well… almost all. The fly people kept theirs and they’re now collectors’ items.

It was unfortunate for Capitol that they’d sent copies to all the fan club presidents, to the record reviewers and to the radio stations, before deciding to change the cover and substitute what the company call a “more suitable photograph.”

I never heard such controversy over any album cover. Most people are shocked by it; some are very sad about the departure from the jovial wide-eyed Beatle thing; many of us wonder about it and none of us is amused for very long.

Me? I don’t think it’s a good picture. I think the concept is naive.

Enough of that. It’s cost Capitol 500,000 album covers and about 75,000 dollars (£25,000). […]

From Disc And Music Echo – June 25, 1966
From Disc And Music Echo – June 25, 1966

BEATLES COVER TROUBLE

The release of the Beatles’ latest U.S. album was held up for a week following protests over the cover. The LP was eventually released last week.

Titled “Yesterday And Today the album’s cover was a colour picture of the Beatles in butchers aprons and surrounded by pieces of meat and sections of dolls.

Many thousands of covers were withdrawn last week and replaced by a “a more suitable” picture.

A spokesman for NEMS told the RM: “We obviously have a say in what goes on the Beatles’ cover, if they put out something that we absolutely hated we would put our foot down. It doesn’t worry us that they aren’t using it. It will not be used as the cover for their next LP here, though.

From Record Mirror – July 2, 1966
From Record Mirror – July 2, 1966
Paul McCartney writing

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