From February 4 – February 14 (St. Valentine’s Day) ,1965, Paul McCartney went on holiday to Hammamet, Tunisia with his girlfriend Jane Asher. Inside the house on the grounds where they were staying was a lavish bathroom with perfect acoustics for songwriting. This was where Paul wrote “Another Girl”.

The Beatles convened the day after his return on February 15th to begin the sessions for the upcoming Help! album and film. Having polished off “Ticket To Ride” in the afternoon session, they used the evening session to work on “Another Girl” and George Harrison’s “I Need You”.

“Another Girl” was knocked off in one take and 10 edit pieces. The 4-track recording had bass and drums on track 1, John Lennon’s Fender and George’s Jumbo Gibson acoustic on track 2, and Paul’s lead vocal along with John and George’s backing vocals on track 3. Track 4 had a few extra vocals from Paul and John, tom-toms from Ringo Starr and George playing his Gretsch at the end. The song was finished off the following day with the recording of Paul’s lead guitar track. This was most likely combined with track 2.

Mono and stereo mixes of “Another Girl” were prepared by February 16th with the mono mix having a much quieter rhythm track than the stereo. On the mono edition of the U.S. Help! soundtrack, however, the mono mix is simply a reduction of the stereo mix.

“Another Girl” went on to be one of the seven new songs used in the Help! film, released in the summer of 1965. In the movie clip shown here, Paul can be seen lip-syncing the song while standing on a coral reef on Balmoral Island in the Bahamas and playing a girl in a bikini as if she is a guitar. This clip features the stereo master of the song.

Click the image above to play the video.

Here are some Amazon links to read more on, or purchase, some music related to this post:

1) Help! (Remastered) 2009 remaster of original 1965 U.K. stereo album, featuring “Another Girl”.

2) Help! 2007 DVD remaster of original 1965 film with 5.1 surround mix plus bonus DVD with lots of extras. Contains stereo and 5.1 mix of “Another Girl”.

3) The Capitol Albums Vol. 2 (Brick) – 2006 4-CD box set containing both stereo and mono mixes of the US Capitol Beatles albums released in 1965. These include The Early Beatles, Beatles VI, Help! and Rubber Soul. Contains both stereo and mono reduction mixes of “Another Girl”.

4) More Amazon links for any of your favorite Beatles-related music: The Beatles, John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr.
Visit www.thebeatlesrarity.com for a new Beatles rarity each week, plus lots more!

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For this week’s BROW, I first want to talk about a guy who was a Capitol Records A&R executive in the 1960′s named Dave Dexter. Capitol Records was actually owned by the U.K.-based company, EMI, that were handling the distribution of Beatles records in Britain through their Parlophone subsidiary. When EMI sent “Please Please Me” to Capitol for consideration as a U.S. single release, it was Dave who turned it down, citing he didn’t think it had what it took to be a marketable piece of music for the American audience. Dave, being in his forties at the time, had grown up with jazz and big band music, and apparently was not totally tuned in to picking out the best in rock and roll. Dave also declined the next couple of Beatle-offerings from EMI too: “From Me To You” and “She Loves You”. At this point, Beatles producer George Martin was infuriated. The singles did get a U.S. release anyway through either Vee Jay Records or Swan Records, but with very little promotional efforts and no backing from a major label, there was no interest generated for The Beatles in America. Fortunately Beatles manager Brian Epstein was able to persuade Capitol Records president, Alan Livingston, to play a few sample Beatles singles himself, including the new “I Want To Hold Your Hand” record, and that was all it took. Capitol agreed to begin distributing The Beatles with major promotional backing by the end of 1963.

Although, he initially passed on The Beatles, Dave Dexter soon came around to the idea, once he saw how the power of “Beatlemania” was taking hold in the U.S. He became the man in charge of compiling the American versions of the Beatles albums, which were arranged quite differently than the LPs released in England. U.S. albums typically contained 11-12 songs, whereas the norm was 14 tracks in the U.K. Dave held some songs back from the British LPs and added singles tracks, so that 2 English LPs meant 3 LPs in America, and thus more sales. The cover art and album titles were also different, such as the U.K. LP “With The Beatles” shortened and becoming “Meet The Beatles!” in the U.S. The mixes of the songs were also changed for the American market. Dave would add lots of echo to the “cleaner” sounding British mixes, because he felt that this added ‘ambiance effect’ was preferred in the U.S. This was okay on some of the music, but was overdone on a few occasions too. “I Feel Fine” and “She’s A Woman” are two tracks that suffer the most from this overabundance of ‘reverb’. These tracks appear on an American single and the Beatles ’65 album. Most listeners today seem to prefer the crisp British mix over the murky sounding American mixes of these two songs, but to each his own.

By late 1965, some of the differences between the U.S. and U.K. catalogs were starting to diminish. The Rubber Soul album was released in December of that year with the same cover art and title on both sides of the Atlantic. This was a first. The track listing was still slightly modified as the U.S. album had a couple of leftover tracks from the U.K. Help! album and also a few U.K. Rubber Soul tracks were left off the U.S. version (such as “Nowhere Man”) to appear later on the U.S.-only LP, “Yesterday”…And Today. Dave Dexter continued with his practice of adding an additional layer of echo on the stereo version of the album, but not all first pressings of the record contain these “Dexterized” versions of the songs. For pressings released in the sixties, it seems that most, if not all, of the east coast pressings have the added echo effects, while other pressings can have either the cleaner sounding mixes heard on the U.K. versions, or the echo enhanced versions. Later pressings, from the 70′s and beyond, have the cleaner sounding mixes, as do the CDs, to include the Rubber Soul disc packaged with the Capitol Albums Vol. 2 box set.

If you have an American Rubber Soul vinyl LP, you may be curious about whether of not yours contains the “clean” or “Dexterized” mixes. Rather than go into details about discerning what vinyl pressing you may have, I thought it might be more effective to suggest a good audio-test instead. The details are forthcoming, so read on…

This week’s BROW, in honor of this Saturday’s anniversary of the birth of George Harrison, is a track he penned for the Rubber Soul album in 1965, about someone, unrevealed, that George had parted ways with. This was an interesting time in Beatle history and one of the key reasons was that George was coming into his own and honing his skills, not only as a guitarist and vocalist, but also as a composer. The song is called “Think For Yourself”. A fuzzbox was added to Paul McCartney’s bass in the recording to pepper the sound with a bit of distortion. Since the “Dexterized” version of the song is no longer readily available, I have chosen to share it with you here, allowing you to hear how much more echo-laden it actually sounded on many of the U.S. stereo albums in the 60′s. The audio comparison test I mentioned earlier is to focus on the song’s ending, because the chords terminate cold and dry on any of the Rubber Soul CD issuances, but echo away with an unmistakeable bit of delay on the mix heard here. Take it away George…

The Beatles, circa 1965

Extra info:

1) Although George prepared two songs for Rubber Soul, “Think For Yourself” was his only track on the U.S. Rubber Soul album. The other track, “If I Needed Someone” appeared in the U.S. on the album “Yesterday”…And Today, released in June 1966.

2) Alternate audio-test: Since the initial stereo issuances of Rubber Soul had the vocals primarily on the right channel, you may be able to play the stereo vinyl (US) LP and adjust your amplifier’s balance control to the right. If it seems like you have more echo in the isolated vocal track than what appears on a Rubber Soul CD or digital file, then you may have an album with the “Dexterized” mix. A good song to try this on is “Girl”.

I would like to thank Fab 4 Radio’s “Beatle Ed” for inspiring me to do the research necessary for this post.

Here are some Amazon links to read more on, or purchase, some music related to this post:

1) Rubber Soul (Remastered) 2009 remastered stereo CD with original stereo U.K. LP from Dec. 1965. Includes stereo mix of “Think For Yourself” (not the “Dexterized” mix).

2) Capitol Albums Vol. 2 Box Set – 2006 remastered 4-CD box set of U.S. Capitol Beatles albums Early Beatles, Beatles VI, Help! and Rubber Soul. The set contains both mono and stereo versions of the original four U.S. LPs from 1965. Features mono and stereo mixes of “Think For Yourself”. Note: The Rubber Soul disc does not include the “Dexterized” mixes discussed in this post.

3) More Amazon links for any of your favorite Beatles-related music: The Beatles, John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr.
Visit www.thebeatlesrarity.com for a new Beatles rarity each week, plus lots more!

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Welcome back for another Beatles Rarity Of The Week. From 1963 through 1965, The Beatles had a new album ready to go in time for the end-of-year holiday season. When it became apparent that this was not in the cards for 1966, EMI personnel hastily assembled a greatest hits album for the U.K. market only. The album was titled A Collection Of Beatles Oldies (But Goldies), and it was a good way for the English album buyers to pick up several tracks that had only been issued on EPs and singles beforehand in the U.K. Furthermore, if you were one of the “earlybirds” that was into stereo sound, you could get the stereo issue of the album, since the singles and EPs in those days were only issued in mono. Many of the songs featured on this disc were making their stereo debut.

On November 10, 1966, while the album was being prepared, it was discovered that there was one Beatles track that had not appeared on any U.K. release to date. The song was the Larry Williams rocker “Bad Boy,” which The Beatles covered during the Help! sessions of the previous year. When Capitol Records in the U.S. needed two more songs to complete their Beatles VI album, The Beatles recorded “Bad Boy” along with another Larry Williams cover, “Dizzy Miss Lizzy,” specifically for the U.S. album. It was later decided to use the latter track on side 2 of the Help! album, but “Bad Boy” was yet to be used. It was a “no-brainer” to feature it on the new compilation, and it was called up from the vault so that balance engineer Peter Brown could remix it into stereo. This is where the mix up occurred.

Instead of the tape for “Bad Boy,” the tape for the 1963 recording of “This Boy” was sent up instead. Peter was none the wiser and promptly created a stereo mix of “This Boy.” After all, there was no stereo mix of it prepared earlier, as it was also a non-album track used as the U.K. b-side to the “I Want To Hold Your Hand” single. Later, when Peter discovered that he mixed the wrong track, the stereo mix of “This Boy” was shelved. “Bad Boy” ended up on “Collection,” as planned, but was never re-mixed by Peter, because it turned out there was already an adequate stereo mix of it available. It had been created on May 10, 1965, for the stereo Beatles VI album.

Years later, in 1976, by which time singles were issued in stereo, the stereo mix of “This Boy” that Peter created in 1966 was rediscovered and issued as the b-side of a Capitol of Canada single, accompanying “All My Loving” on the a-side. However, this single was only issued in Canada. Curiously, in 1977, when Capitol Records in the U.S. released their Love Songs compilation, they created a new fake (rechannelled) stereo version of “This Boy” for the album, instead of using Peter’s real stereo mix that had been rediscovered just one year earlier. My guess is this was simply an oversight, and perhaps they were completely unaware that the real stereo mix even existed. By the way, an earlier “fake stereo” mix of “This Boy” had also been used on the stereo edition of Capitol’s Meet The Beatles! album in January 1964.

Fortunately, there is no need to track down a 36-year-old Canadian single to hear the real stereo account of “This Boy.” It now appears on the 2009 remastered Past Masters CD (along with “Bad Boy”). Seventeen takes were recorded by The Beatles on October 17, 1963, and take 15 was used to create the master. For this week’s BROW, I have an untrimmed version of the recording that still includes Peter Brown’s opening slate announcement for “RS15″ (sound engineer lingo for stereo remix of take 15).

Final comments: Although I am of the opinion that many Beatles songs sound punchier in mono, the separation in the real stereo mix of “This Boy” perfectly accentuates John, Paul and George’s three-part harmonies. Turn up your speakers a notch when you play it and see what I mean. Thanks for stopping by this week.

The Beatles, 1963

The U.K. compilation discussed here, A Collection Of Beatles Oldies (But Goldies), is now obsolete and replaced in The Beatles catalog by either of the releases I’ve listed below, along with their links to Amazon for further info or, if you like, to purchase:

1) Past Masters (Remastered) – 2009 remastered 2-CD set containing stereo mixes of The Beatles non-album tracks, including “This Boy” and “Bad Boy”.

2) 1962-1966 (Red) Remastered – 2010 2-CD compilation of the 1962-1966 Beatles hits using the recently remastered versions of The Beatles catalog. A great collection of early material (originally compiled in 1973) but does not include “This Boy” or “Bad Boy”.

3) Find more Beatles-related music on Amazon: The Beatles, John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr.
Visit www.thebeatlesrarity.com for a new Beatles rarity each week, plus lots more!

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On August 1, 1965, after over a year of no live performances on U.K. television, The Beatles took the stage at the ABC Theatre to perform six numbers on the program Blackpool Night Out. Along with both sides of their new single (“Help!” and “I’m Down”), they performed the A-sides of the previous two singles (“Ticket To Ride” and “I Feel Fine”) and two songs from their latest LP, Help! The first of these was Ringo Starr’s vocal performance of the Buck Owen’s song “Act Naturally”. The second, featured here for the VOW, is Paul McCartney’s solo performance of “Yesterday.”

The audience during “Yesterday” is quite interesting, as they are likely used to screaming, but aren’t sure how to react to such a gentle song. As the stage lights darken, John Lennon and George Harrison make their exit, and Ringo remains sitting quietly at his drums. Paul plays his acoustic guitar upside down, and is accompanied only by the house band’s string quartet. The audience remains unusually quiet until Paul’s final note. At that point, as the screaming applause fills the room, the lights come up, and John Lennon runs on stage to present Paul with a bouquet of flowers, saying “Thank you, Ringo. That was wonderful.”

This performance of “Yesterday” (along with”I Feel Fine”, “Ticket To Ride” and “Help!” from the same show) appears on the Beatles Anthology 2 CD set. All six Blackpool performances except “I Feel Fine” appear, at least partially, on episode 4 of the Beatles Anthology home video documentary. This show would be The Beatles’ last non-mimed U.K. television performance until “All You Need Is Love” in 1967.

Click the image above to play the video.

Beatles music makes great gifts over the holidays. Here are some Amazon links to read more on, or purchase, some music related to this post, for your favorite Beatlemaniac:

1) Anthology 2 1996 2-CD set featuring out-takes, live performances and other historic Beatles recordings between 1965-1968. Includes the version of “Yesterday” heard in this post.

2) The Beatles Anthology – 2003 reissue of 5 DVD set with over 10 hours of Beatles commentary and historic performances, including the performance of “Yesterday” seen in this post.

3) Help! (Remastered) 2009 stereo CD remaster of original 1965 album, featuring original stereo master of “Yesterday”.

4) More Amazon links for any of your favorite Beatles-related music: The Beatles, John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr.
Visit www.thebeatlesrarity.com for a new Beatles rarity each week, plus lots more!

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Welcome to the Beatles Rarity Of The Week. Paul McCartney’s summer On The Run tour has sadly drawn to a close, and those of you who were lucky enough to catch him this time around will likely recall a Beatles tune he added to his setlist that has never been performed at a Beatles or McCartney concert before this tour. I’m speaking of The Night Before, the subject of this week’s BROW.

The Night Before was one of the seven songs featured in the Beatles second film, Help!, in the summer of 1965. The song was written mainly by Paul, who can be seen singing and playing bass on it in the Help! film, along with the other Beatles on the Salisbury Plain in southern England.

On May 26, 1965, The Beatles recorded their last exclusive show for BBC Radio. They had already recorded a staggering 268 songs for BBC, broadcast on 51 shows. The new title for their final program was The Beatles Invite You To Take A Ticket To Ride, and instead of their old friend Brian Matthew serving as host, the chat was guided by Denny Piercy. The Beatles were already acquainted with Denny from their own appearance on his Parade Of The Pops radio show, way back on the 20th of February 1963, when they performed Love Me Do and Please Please Me. Denny talks with them about the upcoming film, Help!, scheduled to hit the box office two months later.

Of the seven new songs featured in the Help! film, the latest single, Ticket To Ride, was the only one that had already been heard by the public. So when this show was broadcast in the U.K on June 7, 1965, it was the first time another Help! song had been heard by the fans anywhere. With the exception of Ticket To Ride, no other songs from the film were featured on the show. They do perform I’m A Loser though, from their previous LP, where John parodies his own lyric to “beneath this wig, I am wearing a tie.”

The Beatles

Here are some Amazon links to read more on, or purchase, some music related to this post:

1) Help! (Remastered) (See all British Invasion Rock Music CDs) – 2009 stereo remaster of original 1965 album, featuring The Night Before and other tracks from the film.

2) Live at the BBC
1994 2-CD compilation of Beatles recordings on the BBC (does not include The Night Before)

3) Additional Amazon links for your favorite Beatles-related music: The Beatles, John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr.
Visit www.thebeatlesrarity.com for a new Beatles rarity each week, plus lots more!

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Welcome to the Beatles Rarity of the Week. It became more or less expected for The Beatles to put out two albums per year as they had in 1963 and 1964. But when October 1965 rolled around, the band was yet to make it into the studio to record a follow up to their first album of the year, Help! Between their extremely hectic schedule and all of the touring, there simply had not been time. Not wanting to disappoint, John and Paul quickly wrote more than a dozen new songs, and today’s BROW was the first one worked on when The Beatles reconvened at Abbey Road to record the Rubber Soul album on October 12th. The plan was to have it out to the shops by early December.

Run For Your Life was written primarily by John and he borrowed the line I’d rather see you dead, little girl, than to be with another man from the Elvis Presley song Baby Let’s Play House. Five takes were recorded on October 12th and the master was created from take 5. Presented for BROW this week is the raw recording of take 5, prior to mixing. To my ears it seems to play at a slightly faster tempo and I’m therefore wondering if the master was slowed down a little during the mixing stage. At this point it is also missing some vocal overdubs, to include John’s na-na-na’s heard during the fade out on the finalized version. In the discussion prior to the take, John refers to the acoustic guitar he plays on the track as his ‘jumbo Gibson’ and asks that it be recorded “heavy” so that when more tracks are added, the rhythm guitar isn’t lost in the mix. This was the beginning of a long series of sessions to complete the record which ended up in final production by November 15th and in the shops by Friday December 3rd (the following Monday in the US), as planned.

An interesting aside: In 1973, John said in an interview that Run For Your Life was his least favorite Beatles song, while it was George’s favorite track on Rubber Soul.

Another interesting aside: In the early 1990s, the song was banned by Ottawa radio station CFRA for its allegedly misogynistic message. When the radio station was asked if it had also banned Elvis’s Baby, Let’s Play House, the program director confessed to not being familiar with that song. Upon listening to it, he banned it as well.

The song has been covered by Nancy Sinatra, Johnny Rivers, Gary Lewis & The Playboys, Robert Gordon and a British girl group known as Thee Headcoatees.

John Lennon at Rubber Soul sessions, Oct. 1965

Want to make a suggestion for a future Beatles Rarity of the Week? If so, I will do my best to deliver, so let me hear from you. To browse for ideas, check out this search-able listing of thousands of Beatle-related recordings to choose from. Then let me hear from you here.

Here are some Amazon links to read more on, or purchase, some music related to this post:

1) Rubber Soul (Remastered)
– 2009 remastered CD contains stereo mix of Run For Your Life

2) More Amazon links for any of your favorite Beatles-related music: The Beatles, John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr.

Visit www.thebeatlesrarity.com for a new Beatles rarity each week, plus lots more!

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Welcome to yet another Beatles Rarity of the Week. This week’s feature was recorded on February 20, 1965, when the Beatles spent their last day at Abbey Road Studios, prior to setting off to make their upcoming film Help! Four rehearsal takes of That Means A Lot, written specifically for the film, were recorded that day, complete with Spanish guitar from George and John playing his Fender Strat. John and George both supplied backing vocals to Paul’s lead. Five hours were dedicated to the session, but unfortunately, even after a remake attempt on March 30, The Beatles were never satisfied with their recording of it. Paul explains in the Beatles Anthology 2 liner notes by saying “We thought we’d give it to somebody who could sing it well”. They ended up giving the song to P.J. Proby, who recorded his version in April 1965, for a July single release. The Beatles version of the song remained in the vault until 1976, when a rough mix was made (announced on the tape with the title Can’t You See). In 1984, a new mix was prepared to be used on the planned EMI Beatles album Sessions (an out-takes compilation), but Sessions, although widely bootlegged since, never saw an official release due to objections by the surviving Beatles. This same 1984 mix was used in 1996 for The Beatles Anthology 2 CD set, despite the way it suffers from a murkiness caused by an overabundance of stereo reverb applied to a mono mix. That’s why I’m happy to share with you a much cleaner and lighter ‘early-eighties’ mix of take 1, created by the late EMI sound engineer John Barrett. John’s work is well known by many Beatles aficionados, and to his credit, while working on this mix, he was fully aware of his terminal condition, and was still able to accomplish an entire series of interesting re-mixes and quality upgrades of Beatles recordings, before his death with cancer in 1984. I have posted a couple of other mixes by John, both here and here, in case you’d like to hear more.

The Beatles

Want to make a suggestion for a future Beatles Rarity of the Week? If so, I will do my best to deliver, so let me hear from you. To browse for ideas, check out this search-able listing of thousands of Beatle-related recordings to choose from. Then let me hear from you here.

Here are some Amazon links to read more on, or purchase, some music related to this post:

1) Anthology 2 – features the mono ‘reverb-heavy’ mix of That Means A Lot from the 1984 Sessions project.

2) Help! (Remastered) – the original Beatles album remastered in 2009.

…and here are more Amazon links for any of your favorite Beatles-related music: The Beatles, John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr.

Visit www.thebeatlesrarity.com for a new Beatles rarity each week, plus lots more!

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Happy Nat w/1st State Mono Yesterday And Today 'Butcher Cover' album

Welcome to the first installment of Collector’s Corner! This time I will be covering what is widely considered a staple to any serious Beatles vinyl collection – the first issuance of the U.S. and Canada only LP release titled Yesterday And Today, but more commonly referred to as the “Butcher Cover” album.

Background information: The hodgepodge nature in which Capitol records compiled Beatles albums between 1964 and 1966 was irritating the group, who felt they “put a lot of work into the sequencing” of the music on the British releases. Yesterday And Today was certainly no exception. The album was a compilation of tracks from the Beatles’ two most recent British LPs, namely Help! and Rubber Soul, which had not yet been included on their U.S. counterpart albums. Additionally, there were tracks from their upcoming U.K. Revolver LP. Since all three of these new tracks were primarily John Lennon compositions, when the U.S. Revolver album came out without them, it significantly limited John’s output for the album to only two songs (Tomorrow Never Knows and She Said She Said). It marked the first time there were more George Harrison composed songs on a U.S. Beatles record than there were John Lennon compositions, since George had three (Taxman, Love You To and I Want To Tell You). Below is the list of the 11 songs from Yesterday and Today and where they came from :

1) Act Naturally, Yesterday: from the UK LP Help!, (issued earlier by Capitol as a single)
2) Nowhere Man, What Goes On: from the UK LP Rubber Soul, (issued earlier by Capitol as a single)
3) Drive My Car, If I Needed Someone: also from the UK LP Rubber Soul
4) We Can Work It Out, Day Tripper: both sides of the single
5) I’m Only Sleeping, Doctor Robert, And Your Bird Can Sing: three Lennon compositions from the upcoming UK LP Revolver. Since Capitol was pressuring EMI in the U.K. for three tracks to fill up the album, the mono version of the album contained mixes that were not yet finalized. Capitol then used these same mixes to create duophonic (i.e. ‘fake’ stereo) mixes for the stereo edition of the album.

The tracks were ordered as follows:
Side 1-Drive My Car, I’m Only Sleeping, Nowhere Man, Doctor Robert, Yesterday, Act Naturally
Side 2-And Your Bird Can Sing, If I Needed Someone, We Can Work It Out, What Goes On, Day Tripper

For the reason stated in 5) above, the mixes of And Your Bird Can Sing, Doctor Robert and I’m Only Sleeping differ significantly between Yesterday And Today and the U.K. Revolver LP, where they had time to have been perfected. Since these unique American mixes are a rarity, two of them have been featured in the BROW series. Click the links below to read and hear how these mixes compare to the versions on the U.K. Revolver versions, which are now the standard:

1) I’m Only Sleeping
2) Doctor Robert

Additionally, And Your Bird Can Sing has louder handclaps and the guitars have a lower volume during the verses on the Yesterday And Today mix. Some Capitol Record Club pressings and later (1970′s) pressings of Yesterday And Today contain the better stereo mixes that appear on the U.K. Revolver album.

The Butcher Cover: In March of 1966, photographer Robert Whitaker had the Beatles in the studio for a conceptual art piece entitled A Somnambulant Adventure. The series of photos were to symbolize philosophical messages and included The Beatles linked to a woman by a string of sausages representing an umbilical cord (symbolizing the birth of The Beatles), George hammering nails into John’s head (symbolizing that The Beatles are flesh and blood like everyone else), and John holding an open box with the number 2,000,00 written on it’s bottom flap, placed around Ringo’s head (to symbolize that Ringo is just one of 2,000,000 members of the human race). For one part of the shoot, Whitaker took a series of pictures of the group dressed in butcher smocks and draped with pieces of bloody meat and body parts from plastic baby dolls. There were cigarette burns on the dolls along with toy eyeballs and even a pair of false teeth lying around. The group played along, as they were tired of the usual photo shoots and the concept was compatible with their own sort of dark humor. In fact, Beatles publicist Tony Barrow recalls that John Lennon was very enthusiastic about the session, as it’s bizarre appeal made it interestingly different than what they were used to. It wasn’t originally intended for use as an album cover, however the Beatles were happy enough with the session’s photos that they submitted some for their promotional materials, including an advertisement in Britain for the Paperback Writer single. Another photo from the session was used for the cover of the June 11, 1966 edition of the British music magazine Disc.

It was likely the art department at Capitol that prepared the originally intended cover art design for the Yesterday And Today cover which used an image of George and Ringo standing around a steamer trunk, with John sitting on top of it and Paul sitting inside it. Capitol submitted this to Beatles manager, Brian Epstein but when Brian showed The Beatles the proposed photo, John after just recently seeing Whitaker’s butcher photos, decided he wanted to use one of those instead, and the other Beatles went along with the idea. It’s been suggested that the use of this photo was a statement by the group as to how Capitol “butchered” the Beatles albums into configurations inconsistent with the way they are on the British release (i.e. the way The Beatles intended them to be). Additionally, according to a 2002 interview published in Mojo magazine, former Capitol president Alan W. Livingston stated that Paul stated that he thought of the butcher cover photo as “our comment on the war”.

The Beatles - Yesterday And Today, 'first state' butcher cover, 1966. Click photo for larger image.

Capitol prepared the cover photo as The Beatles wished during May 1966, even though Capitol’s sales department strongly protested. By June, advance copies of the album were being sent to disc jockeys and newspaper and magazine reviewers. It was even on sale in stores in a few limited areas, but only for about a day. The response was immediate and uniformly negative. Stores were refusing to handle the album due to the grotesque cover. Tony Barrow recalls that the cover could have been worse as the blood stains on the Beatles smocks was airbrushed out, however it was apparently offensive enough.

The Beatles - 'Yesterday And Today, 'second state' LP, 1966. Click photo for larger image.

Capitol immediately pulled the plug on the album by sending out recall letters to all who had been sent copies, explaining that a new cover was being prepared, and they would be sent a new copy. The letter requested recipients to return the album they were already sent C.O.D to Capitol. A (pdf) copy of this letter can be downloaded here. Capitol employees spent a weekend stripping the covers from the discs and boxing them up to send back to the plants for new covers still being prepared. The original covers were being destroyed by being cut up and taken to landfills. After many were destroyed, a Capitol employee came up with the money-saving idea of re-using them by simply creating a cover slick to paste over the old covers. The original steamer trunk photo was used on the new cover slicks and the factories were set up to paste the new slicks directly over the original butcher photo slicks and then trim 1/8 of an inch, or so, off of the right side of the jacket, in order to insure a smooth opening edge. Later, the collector’s terminology assigned to these pasted over album jackets became “second state” or “paste-over” butcher covers, whereas the few copies that survived being pasted over or destroyed are called “first state” butcher covers. While this pasting over process was underway, there were also new jackets with the steamer trunk cover being prepared, so when stores would receive their supply of the steamer trunk cover albums, some would be “paste-overs” and some would not.

Close up of 'second state' Butcher cover where Ringo's shirt shows through. Click photo for larger image.

If you have a copy of the Yesterday And Today LP with the steamer trunk cover on it, and you are wondering if it is a “paste-over” copy, it isn’t too hard to tell. If you shine a bright light on the cover and look in the white area just to the right of the top of the steamer trunk and Ringo’s elbow, you should be able to see the faint image of Ringo’s black shirt, from the butcher cover photo, showing through the white background of the slick, as shown in the close up photo of the area to the left. When word got out in 1966 as to what Capitol had done, many curious record buyers began trying unsuccessfully to peel off the steamer trunk covers to see if they had a butcher cover hidden underneath, but usually ended up destroying their cover. Consequently, second state copies of the album are now quite rare. There are professional methods for peeling a second state copy, but that should be handled by an expert. In the interview section of this site, I have interviewed one such expert. His name is Gary Hein (owner of Hein’s Rare Collectibles), and in this interview dated November 2010, Gary gives lots of further info about the incredible tale of this album, as well as other information about his dealership of collectible Beatles records and memorabilia. Check this interview out here, if you like.

Mono copy of 'The Beatles -Yesterday And Today' third state butcher cover, 1966. Cut out hole in upper right indicates that while it had the trunk cover still pasted over it, it ended up in a cut-out bin. Click photo for larger image.

So, why would someone want to peel their second-state butcher covers? Many people are intrigued by the bizarre appearance of the original cover and how it deviated from the image of The Beatles at the time, or any other rock or pop band of the era. Some collector-types prefer a peeled copy because it is the closest they can hope to come to a first state original. If the peel job is done professionally, it is almost a perfect replica of an original first state version. The only tell tale signs to indicate otherwise being the remaining glue residue on the newly exposed front cover, and the fact that the jacket will not be quite as wide, due to the right side of the jacket being trimmed immediately after applying the pasted over slick at the factory. Peeled copies are known by collectors as ‘third state copies’, in keeping with the already mentioned terminology. It used to be that if a third state copy had a professional peel job, it was more valuable than a second state copy. This is no longer the case today. Since the number of second states copies that are in at least near mint condition has diminished considerably over the years (due to (1) so many people having already peeled them, and (2) so many copies have had their jackets destroyed in the mere attempt to peel them), the copies in mint/near-mint condition are now matching the value of the third state copies with the best peel jobs.

Stereo copy of 'The Beatles -Yesterday And Today' third state butcher cover, 1966. Since only 10% of the copies of this album were stereo pressings, they are much rarer than the mono pressings. Click photo for larger image.

Another thing to note is that in mid 1966, mono was still king in the pop music world. Only 1 out of every 10 pressings of Yesterday And Today was a stereo pressing, therefore they are worth over twice as much as the mono pressings. The stereo pressings have a banner across the top part of the front cover slick that reads “New Improved Full Dimensional Stereo” (see photo at right). I will discuss value in more depth in the next section. Read on…

So exactly how much are these butcher cover albums worth?: The 2007 (6th) edition of Price Guide For The Beatles American Records by Perry Cox and Frank Daniels gives us the following figures:

1) First state mono in near mint condition: $4000
2) First state mono promotional copy in near mint condition (w/Promotional Copy – Not For Sale stamp): $5000
3) First state stereo copy in near mint condition: $12,000
4) Second state (paste-over) mono copy in near mint condition: $800
5) Second state (paste-over) stereo copy in near mint condition: $1500
6) Third state (peeled) mono copy in near mint condition: $800
7) Third state (peeled) stereo copy in near mint condition: $1500

Of course, these figures are just guidelines, and to be honest, seem to me to be quite low in comparison with some recent sales I have seen. In the case of first and second state copies, if the albums are still sealed (i.e. unopened) in their original shrink wrap they can bring several times the price listed above. In the case of third state copies, the value is very dependent on the quality of the “peel job”. This, along with the staggering rate of appreciation first state copies have had since the 1970′s (outperforming Dow Jones Industrial Average every year), the values are somewhat arbitrary.

Here are some examples of butcher covers selling for more than the values listed above:

In 1987, former president of Capitol Records, Alan Livingston released for sale twenty-four first state butcher covers from his private collection. When the original cover was scrapped in June 1966, Livingston took a case of already-sealed butcher albums from the warehouse before they were to be pasted over with the new covers. He kept them in a closet at his home for over twenty years. These albums were first offered for sale at a Beatles convention at the Marriott Hotel near Los Angeles International Airport on Thanksgiving weekend, 1987 by Livingston’s son. These still-sealed pristine items, which included nineteen mono and five stereo versions, are the very rarest “pedigree” specimen butcher covers in existence. These so-called Livingston Butchers today command premium prices among collectors with the five stereo versions being the most rare and valuable of these. In April 2006, Heritage Auction Galleries sold one of the sealed mono Livingston Butchers at auction in Dallas for about $39,000.

An extremely rare original first state stereo copy that was not from the Livingston collection was presented for appraisal at a 2003 Chicago taping of the PBS series Antiques Roadshow. It was still in the possession of the original owner, who had bought it at Sears & Roebuck on the day of release in 1966, the only day that the original butcher cover versions were on sale, before being recalled by Capitol. Although not in its original shrink wrap, it had rarely been played and was still in excellent condition. Roadshow appraiser Gary Sohmers placed it’s 2003 value at $10,000 – $12,000.

At the time of this writing, there is a still sealed (mint) second state butcher cover listed on Ebay for $23,000.There are also an abundance of “counterfeit issues” of these albums as well available, so buyer beware! Feel free to consult any of the professional Beatles Dealers listed at the end of this article if interested in making such an investment.

Original inner sleeve for Beatles Yesterday And Today album, 1966. Click photo for larger image.

Other considerations that influence the value are the condition of both the jacket and the record itself. If the jacket has marks or seam splits or even normal wear it would be considered in less than near mint condition, and significantly influence the value. The record, if considered mint or near mint, should have no signs (or extremely minimal signs) of ever being played. It is also good to have the original inner sleeve that accompanied the record in 1966 (see photo left). It goes without saying that if you have a copy of this record, you should keep it in the best condition as possible and not play it. The record and sleeve should be packaged separately in plastic to help protect it.

Back cover of Beatles Yesterday And Today LP. Click photo for larger image.

Final notes:

What The Beatles themselves had to say concerning the butcher cover album:

John Lennon: It was as relevant as Vietnam.

Paul McCartney: The critics were “soft”.

George Harrison: The whole idea was gross, and I also thought it was stupid. Sometimes we all did stupid things thinking it was cool and hip when it was naïve and dumb; and that was one of them.

Ringo Starr: It was a commentary on how Capitol Records “butchered” our original albums.

Due to the album cover fiasco, Yesterday And Today was the only Beatles record to lose money for Capitol.

Entries in the vinyl inventory of Happy Nat for this record:

1) 1st, 2nd and 3rd state mono copies
2) 3rd state stereo copy
3) stereo re-issue copies (w/steamer trunk cover)
4) Canadian mono copy (w/steamer trunk cover)

In closing, I’d like to credit the main sources of information used in this post: Bruce Spizer’s The Beatles Story on Capitol Records (Part Two), Bill Harry’s The Beatles Encyclopedia, Revised and Updated, Perry Cox and Frank Daniel’s Price Guide For The Beatles American Records (6th edition), and websites: Wikipedia.com, Ebay.com, and MyBeatlesCollection.com. I would also like to personally thank Gary Hein for insuring that my information is accurate. Gary’s website is at http://www.beatles4me.com. Certainly if you are after further details about this album, you can find it with any of these resources.

A few dealers in Beatles collectibles:

Perry Cox: email to perrydcox@aol.com
Gary Hein: visit online at www.beatles4me.com
Rockaway Records: visit online at www.rockaway.com.

I welcome questions and comments from anyone concerning this album and would certainly love to hear from any owners of it (in any state or condition), so let me hear from you!

Visit www.thebeatlesrarity.com for a new Beatles rarity each week, plus lots more!

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This week’s BROW continues with the third in our “take 1″ series.

The entire evening session of February 16, 1965 was spent on John Lennon’s Yes It Is. The band used their conventional line-up of Paul on bass, Ringo on drums, George on electric guitar and John on acoustic guitar, playing rhythm. George would be using his new volume control pedal, that had just been broken in that afternoon, when they recorded his Help! soundtrack tune, I Need You. Take 1 of Yes It Is is only treated with a guide vocal from John and although it is a complete run through, they play it sloppily. This is mainly because they were still learning the song. Nevertheless, it is charming and certainly of historical interest to hear the humble beginnings, with the thought in mind of the perfection the final master (take 14) demonstrated, with the double-tracked Lennon vocal fully supported by the close harmonies from both Paul and George. On take 1, Paul makes some bass errors in the third verse, John gets a little silly with his vocals, and George doesn’t really know what to play yet. Since they haven’t worked out an ending at this point, they finish by vamping on an E chord. You can barely catch John saying “we’ll have to have an ending” just as the tape cuts off. Incidentally, if you’d like to hear take 2, most of it is included on The Beatles Anthology 2 CD set (disc 1, track 2). Since take 2 breaks down toward the end, the Anthology 2 mix uses an edit of the beautifully remastered take 14 to finish it up.

This concludes the series of take 1s, but that doesn’t mean there won’t be more coming up later. Thanks again go to Stacia for the “take 1 series” idea. It’s been fun!

Smile! John Lennon, 1965

Also, I have the site listed on BeatleLinks.net now so if you’d like to rate this site and maybe even give a review, the link is here. Kind words will make an even happier Nat.

Want to make a suggestion for a future Beatles Rarity of the Week? If so, I will do my best to deliver, so let me hear from you. To browse for ideas, check out this search-able listing of Beatle-related recordings to choose from. Then let me hear from you here.

Visit www.thebeatlesrarity.com for a new Beatles rarity each week, plus lots more!

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Welcome to the Beatles Rarity Of The Week. This week we go back to 1965 when The Beatles were quickly trying to wrap up a collection of songs for their Rubber Soul album in time for the Christmas market. This lengthy instrumental track was originally going to be included, but after John came up with “Girl” and Paul came up with “I’m Looking Through You” they deciding to resurrect a leftover track from the Help! sessions called “Wait”. With these new additions there was no room for this bluesy instrumental and it was relegated to the vault.

Never properly titled, “12-Bar Original” made an appearance on the Beatles’ Anthology 2 CD set in 1996, but it was severely edited down to under 3 minutes due to time constraints. What is presented here is a 1982 re-mix by the late EMI sound engineer John Barrett of the nearly 7 minute track in it’s entirety.

The Beatles, circa 1965

Want to make a suggestion for a future Beatles Rarity of the Week? Then let me hear from you. Read about more Beatles rarities and suggest one for me to post. You can begin by searching for different versions of specific tracks right here.
Visit www.thebeatlesrarity.com for a new Beatles rarity each week, plus lots more!

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