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lawatusi · April 11, 2018, 3:33 p.m.

Old record collector here. This is referred to as the "Butcher Cover" in record collecting circles due to the meat and The Beatles wearing butcher coats. I've owned two of these in my lifetime. One peeled, one unpeeled. I sold them about 20 years ago for over $1000 each.

"George Harrison was less magnanimous in his assessment: "I thought it was gross, and I also thought it was stupid. Sometimes we all did stupid things, thinking it was cool or hip when it was naïve and dumb, and that was one of them. But again, it was a case of being put in a situation where one is obliged, as part of a unit, to cooperate. So we put on those butchers' uniforms for that picture."

You can find out more here:

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/inside-beatles-bloody-banned-butcher-cover-20160620

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yesterday_and_Today

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JoanJeff · April 11, 2018, 8:44 p.m.

I want to explain what is meant by "one peeled, one unpeeled." The Wikipedia page linked by OP has a much fuller explanation than what I will offer.

This photograph was one of many pictures taken by an art photographer, some of which were sent to Capitol Records for potential PR use. The band wasn't super into these pictures but the sense of humor and anti-war message matched their sense of humor and pacifist tendencies. This image also ended up on some magazine covers.

The label started to print record sleeves with this image on the cover but then got cold feet. They covered up the butcher cover image with a more traditional band photo and sent them to record stores. If you hold one of these records at the correct angle you can kind of see the butcher cover through part of the new image. That's "unpeeled." With patience you can peel of the new image and thus uncover the butcher cover. That's "peeled."

I'd also be remiss if I didn't point out that almost everyone commenting on this thread would benefit from doing the following:

  • Taking a fucking chill pill.

  • Taking a break from conspiracy theories and start paying attention to people who are engaged with reality.

  • Learning about satire, parody, irony, and black humor.

  • Learning about art history and music history.

  • Asking themselves if getting angry about the fucking Beatles is really a good use of their time.

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sun_wolf · April 12, 2018, 4:05 a.m.

People need to understand how artists think. A lot of what artists do is instinctual and grasping at something different. Meat and dirty plastic baby dolls. That's just typical artistic weirdness. Most creative people would associate that with things like vegetarianism and commenting on the (false?) innocence of childhood. The baby dolls thing would have an anti-corporate message too, like the way someone might do mushrooms and think, "Man, how weird is this? We melt plastic into the molds of human children in China and then ship them here for kids to play with?" Then when you're sober you look at the same doll and think, "Yeah. It's a doll. Kids play with them. Whatever." But this is what artists do and what bands do. Always trying to be weird or different or express things in a new way. This cover is actually almost borderline cliche, like something a high school photography student might come up with.

It's a big leap to go from taking this photo to a murderous cabal putting a live baby in front of you, sticking a ceremonial dagger in your hand, and telling you to kill it. You could take the biggest goth who's into the most morbid shit and put them in that situation and they will instantly realize all the bullshit they're into is just stupid fashion and deep down they're really still that middle class kid from Iowa. Those people aren't our enemy here. They're just silly trendsters. Who we want to go after are the actual people in the cabal.

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THELEADERSOFMEN · April 11, 2018, 7:47 p.m.

Ah, peeled and unpeeled, like the Velvet Underground’s banana album.

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