Yesterday and Today
Encyclopedia
Yesterday and Today is the ninth Capitol
release by The Beatles
and the eleventh overall American release. It was issued only in the United States and Canada. The album is remembered primarily for the controversy surrounding its original cover image, the "butcher cover" featuring the band dressed in white smocks and covered with decapitated baby dolls and pieces of meat. The album's title is based on the song "Yesterday
". Early album cover proofs show the word "Yesterday" in quotes. Yesterday and Today was the only Beatles record to lose money for Capitol.
The hodgepodge nature in which Capitol Records compiled their albums irritated the group, who felt they had "put a lot of work into the sequencing" of the British versions.
Apart from the butcher cover, the Yesterday and Today album is of interest to collectors for the appearance of unique mixes unavailable on CD. Until 2009, the Help! and Rubber Soul tracks were not available in their original 1965 mixes. Because of Capitol Records' haste to release new product, duophonic
("fake stereo") mixes of "Dr. Robert", "And Your Bird Can Sing" and "I'm Only Sleeping" were made from the original US mono mixes made on May 1966 and were treated with a degree of compression and reverb not found elsewhere. On the stereo mix of "Day Tripper", the guitar intro is heard on the left channel and jumps into the right channel (and has John's extra "yeah" on the first chorus). On the stereo LP, "We Can Work It Out"'s harmonium is moved to the center during the refrain and the bridge. The mono mixes on "Dr. Robert", "And Your Bird Can Sing" and "I'm Only Sleeping" are also different from the ordinary UK mixes released on Revolver
. For example, in the US mono of "I'm Only Sleeping", the backwards guitar doesn't come in until the line "taking my time". "Dr. Robert" lasts longer than the 2:13 time given on the label; John Lennon is heard to say either "OK Herb" or "Hey there" at the end during the fade-out of the mono version only. Also the chorus sections in the US mono version have different vocals and extra percussion. The hand-claps on "And Your Bird Can Sing" are louder.
Pressings by the Capitol Records Club and all tape copies have the Revolver tracks in true stereo. Some later pressings (1973 onwards) can be found with the tracks in either true stereo or duophonic.
had the Beatles in the studio for a conceptual art
piece entitled "A Somnambulant Adventure." For the shoot, Whitaker took a series of pictures of the group dressed in butcher smocks and draped with pieces of meat and body parts from plastic baby dolls. The group played along as they were tired of the usual photo shoots and the concept was compatible with their own "black humour". Although not originally intended as an album cover, the Beatles submitted photographs from the session for their promotional materials. According to a 2002 interview published in Mojo magazine, former Capitol president Alan W. Livingston
stated that it was Paul McCartney
who pushed strongly for the photo's inclusion as the album cover, and that McCartney reportedly described it as "our comment on the war
". A photograph of the band smiling amid the mock carnage was used as promotional advertisements for the British release of the "Paperback Writer
" single. Also, a similar photograph from this shoot was used for the cover of the 11 June 1966 edition of the British music magazine Disc
.
In the United States, Capitol Records
printed approximately 750,000 copies of Yesterday and Today with the same photograph as "Paperback Writer". They were assembled in Capitol's four US plants situated in different cities: Los Angeles, California
; Scranton, Pennsylvania
; Winchester, Virginia
; and Jacksonville, Illinois
. Numbers designating where the covers originated were printed near the RIAA symbol on the back; for example, stereo copies from the Los Angeles plant are designated "5" and mono Los Angeles copies are marked "6". Mono copies outnumbered stereo copies by about 10 to 1, making the stereo copies far more rare and valuable to collectors. A small fraction of the original covers were shipped to disc jockeys and reviewers as advance copies. Reaction was immediate, as Capitol received complaints from some dealers. The record was immediately recalled under orders from Capitol parent company EMI
chairman Sir Joseph Lockwood and all copies were ordered shipped back to the record label, leading to its rarity and popularity among collectors.
At the time, some of the Beatles defended the use of the Butcher photograph. John Lennon
said that it was "as relevant as Vietnam
" and McCartney said that their critics were "soft". However, this opinion was not shared by all band members. George Harrison
(who became a vegetarian) was quoted as saying that he thought 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." Capitol Records apologised for the offence.
Capitol initially ordered plant managers to destroy the covers, and the Jacksonville plant delivered most of its copies to a landfill. However, faced with so many jackets already printed, Capitol decided instead to paste a much more conventional cover over the old ones. The new cover, featuring a picture of the band posed around an open steamer trunk, had to be trimmed on the open end by about 3 mm (1/8 inch) because the new sheet, known as a "slick", was not placed exactly "square" on top of the original cover. Tens of thousands of these so-called "Trunk" covers were sent out. As word of this manoeuvre became known to the public, owners of the altered cover attempted, usually unsuccessfully, to peel off the pasted-over cover, hoping to reveal the original image hidden beneath. Eventually, the soaring value and desirability of unpasted-over Butcher covers spurred the development of intricate and complex techniques for peeling the Trunk cover off in such a way that only faint horizontal glue lines remained on the original cover.
Copies that have never had the white cover pasted onto them, known as "first state" covers, are very rare and command the highest prices. Copies with the pasted-on cover intact above the butcher image are known as "second state" or "pasteovers"; today, pasteover covers that have remained unpeeled are also becoming increasingly rare and valuable. Covers that have had the Trunk cover removed to reveal the underlying butcher image are known as "third state" covers; these are now the most common (and least valuable, although their value varies depending on how well the cover is removed) as people continue to peel second state covers. The most valuable and highly prized First and Second State Butcher Covers are those that were never opened and remain still sealed in their original shrink wrap. Since the first documented collector's sale of a mono Butcher cover LP in 1974, which fetched US$457.00, the value of first state mono versions has consistently appreciated by around 100% per year.
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, and kept them in a closet at his home. 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, 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, and Roadshow appraiser Gary Sohmers valued it at US$10,000 - $12,000.
Capitol Records of Canada vice president and A&R
head at the time Paul White kept a mono cover and a stereo cover slick for his collection.
There were no music tape versions of the Yesterday ...and Today "Butcher Cover". 8-track tape & Reel to reel tapes were issued approximately one month after the vinyl album was released in 1966 and cassette
tapes were not issued by Capitol Records until 1968.
Side one
Side two
Capitol Records
Capitol Records is a major United States based record label, formerly located in Los Angeles, but operating in New York City as part of Capitol Music Group. Its former headquarters building, the Capitol Tower, is a major landmark near the corner of Hollywood and Vine...
release by The Beatles
The Beatles
The Beatles were an English rock band, active throughout the 1960s and one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed acts in the history of popular music. Formed in Liverpool, by 1962 the group consisted of John Lennon , Paul McCartney , George Harrison and Ringo Starr...
and the eleventh overall American release. It was issued only in the United States and Canada. The album is remembered primarily for the controversy surrounding its original cover image, the "butcher cover" featuring the band dressed in white smocks and covered with decapitated baby dolls and pieces of meat. The album's title is based on the song "Yesterday
Yesterday (song)
"Yesterday" is a song originally recorded by The Beatles for their 1965 album Help!. The song first hit the United Kingdom top 10 three months after the release of Help!. The song remains popular today with more than 1,600 cover versions, one of the most covered songs in the history of recorded...
". Early album cover proofs show the word "Yesterday" in quotes. Yesterday and Today was the only Beatles record to lose money for Capitol.
Music
Yesterday and Today compiled tracks from the Beatles' two most recent British LPs which had not yet been included on American albums, plus three from their upcoming LP in the United Kingdom:- from the UK LP Help!Help! (album)Help! is the title of the fifth British and ninth American album by The Beatles, and the soundtrack from their film of the same name. Produced by George Martin for EMI's Parlophone Records, it contains fourteen songs in its original British form, of which seven appeared in the film...
, the tracks "Act NaturallyAct Naturally"Act Naturally" is a song written by Johnny Russell and Voni Morrison, originally recorded by Buck Owens and the Buckaroos, whose version reached number 1 on the Billboard Country Singles chart in 1963, his first chart-topper...
" and "YesterdayYesterday (song)"Yesterday" is a song originally recorded by The Beatles for their 1965 album Help!. The song first hit the United Kingdom top 10 three months after the release of Help!. The song remains popular today with more than 1,600 cover versions, one of the most covered songs in the history of recorded...
" (earlier issued by CapitolCapitol RecordsCapitol Records is a major United States based record label, formerly located in Los Angeles, but operating in New York City as part of Capitol Music Group. Its former headquarters building, the Capitol Tower, is a major landmark near the corner of Hollywood and Vine...
as a single) - from the UK LP Rubber SoulRubber SoulRubber Soul is the sixth studio album by the English rock group The Beatles, released in December 1965. Produced by George Martin, Rubber Soul had been recorded in just over four weeks to make the Christmas market...
, the tracks "Nowhere Man" and "What Goes On" (also earlier issued by Capitol as a single), plus "Drive My CarDrive My Car"Drive My Car" is a song primarily written by Paul McCartney, with lyrical contributions from John Lennon, and first released by The Beatles on the British version of the 1965 album Rubber Soul; it also appeared in North America on the Yesterday and Today collection...
" and "If I Needed SomeoneIf I Needed Someone"If I Needed Someone" is a song written by George Harrison. Versions by The Beatles and by The Hollies appeared simultaneously, both being released in the United Kingdom on 3 December 1965. The Hollies version appeared on a single. Most of the Hollies previous singles had been big top ten hits...
". - both sides of the single "Day TripperDay Tripper"Day Tripper" is a song by The Beatles, released as a double A-side single with "We Can Work It Out". Both songs were recorded during the sessions for the Rubber Soul album...
" / "We Can Work It OutWe Can Work It Out"We Can Work It Out" is a song by The Beatles, written by Paul McCartney and John Lennon. It was released as a "double A-sided" single with "Day Tripper", the first time both sides of a single were so designated in an initial release...
" - from the upcoming UK LP RevolverRevolver (album)Revolver is the seventh studio album by the English rock group The Beatles, released on 5 August 1966 on the Parlophone label and produced by George Martin. Many of the tracks on Revolver are marked by an electric guitar-rock sound, in contrast with their previous LP, the folk rock inspired Rubber...
, the tracks "I'm Only SleepingI'm Only Sleeping"I'm Only Sleeping" is a song by The Beatles from their 1966 studio album Revolver. It was released two months earlier in the United States on the album Yesterday And Today and did not feature on the original US version of Revolver...
", "Doctor RobertDoctor Robert"Doctor Robert" is a song by The Beatles released on the album Revolver in the United Kingdom and on Yesterday and Today in the United States. The song was written by John Lennon and Paul McCartney. It was recorded in 7 takes on 17 April 1966 with vocals overdubbed 19 April. Lennon said that he was...
", and "And Your Bird Can SingAnd Your Bird Can Sing"And Your Bird Can Sing" is a song by The Beatles, released on their 1966 album Revolver in the United Kingdom and on Yesterday...and Today in the United States. The songwriting credit is Lennon–McCartney, though the song was written primarily by John Lennon, with contributions by George Harrison...
", issued here in duophonicDuophonic*In synthesizers, capable of sounding two voices, or notes, at a time. Compare: monophonic, polyphonic.*Duophonic is also a term used to refer to a sound process by which a monaural recording is turned into a kind of "fake stereo" by splitting the signal into two channels, delaying the left and the...
mixes (see below).
The hodgepodge nature in which Capitol Records compiled their albums irritated the group, who felt they had "put a lot of work into the sequencing" of the British versions.
Apart from the butcher cover, the Yesterday and Today album is of interest to collectors for the appearance of unique mixes unavailable on CD. Until 2009, the Help! and Rubber Soul tracks were not available in their original 1965 mixes. Because of Capitol Records' haste to release new product, duophonic
Duophonic
*In synthesizers, capable of sounding two voices, or notes, at a time. Compare: monophonic, polyphonic.*Duophonic is also a term used to refer to a sound process by which a monaural recording is turned into a kind of "fake stereo" by splitting the signal into two channels, delaying the left and the...
("fake stereo") mixes of "Dr. Robert", "And Your Bird Can Sing" and "I'm Only Sleeping" were made from the original US mono mixes made on May 1966 and were treated with a degree of compression and reverb not found elsewhere. On the stereo mix of "Day Tripper", the guitar intro is heard on the left channel and jumps into the right channel (and has John's extra "yeah" on the first chorus). On the stereo LP, "We Can Work It Out"'s harmonium is moved to the center during the refrain and the bridge. The mono mixes on "Dr. Robert", "And Your Bird Can Sing" and "I'm Only Sleeping" are also different from the ordinary UK mixes released on Revolver
Revolver (album)
Revolver is the seventh studio album by the English rock group The Beatles, released on 5 August 1966 on the Parlophone label and produced by George Martin. Many of the tracks on Revolver are marked by an electric guitar-rock sound, in contrast with their previous LP, the folk rock inspired Rubber...
. For example, in the US mono of "I'm Only Sleeping", the backwards guitar doesn't come in until the line "taking my time". "Dr. Robert" lasts longer than the 2:13 time given on the label; John Lennon is heard to say either "OK Herb" or "Hey there" at the end during the fade-out of the mono version only. Also the chorus sections in the US mono version have different vocals and extra percussion. The hand-claps on "And Your Bird Can Sing" are louder.
Pressings by the Capitol Records Club and all tape copies have the Revolver tracks in true stereo. Some later pressings (1973 onwards) can be found with the tracks in either true stereo or duophonic.
Release and reception
Released in June 1966, the Yesterday and Today album's controversial cover marked the first time the Beatles' judgement was criticised by the media and distributors. Nevertheless, the album reached #1 on the US Billboard charts by 30 July 1966 and certified gold soon after. It stayed at number one for five weeks.The "Butcher cover"
In early 1966, photographer Robert WhitakerRobert Whitaker (photographer)
Robert Whitaker was a renowned British photographer, best known internationally for his many photographs of The Beatles, taken between 1964 and 1966, and for his photographs of the rock group Cream, which were used in the Martin Sharp-designed collage on the cover of their 1967 LP Disraeli...
had the Beatles in the studio for a conceptual art
Conceptual art
Conceptual art is art in which the concept or idea involved in the work take precedence over traditional aesthetic and material concerns. Many of the works, sometimes called installations, of the artist Sol LeWitt may be constructed by anyone simply by following a set of written instructions...
piece entitled "A Somnambulant Adventure." For the shoot, Whitaker took a series of pictures of the group dressed in butcher smocks and draped with pieces of meat and body parts from plastic baby dolls. The group played along as they were tired of the usual photo shoots and the concept was compatible with their own "black humour". Although not originally intended as an album cover, the Beatles submitted photographs from the session for their promotional materials. According to a 2002 interview published in Mojo magazine, former Capitol president Alan W. Livingston
Alan W. Livingston
Alan Wendell Livingston , born Alan Wendell Levison, was an American businessman best known for his tenures at Capitol Records, first as a writer/producer best-known for creating Bozo the Clown for a series of record-album and illustrative read-along children's book sets, then as the executive who...
stated that it was Paul McCartney
Paul McCartney
Sir James Paul McCartney, MBE, Hon RAM, FRCM is an English musician, singer-songwriter and composer. Formerly of The Beatles and Wings , McCartney is listed in Guinness World Records as the "most successful musician and composer in popular music history", with 60 gold discs and sales of 100...
who pushed strongly for the photo's inclusion as the album cover, and that McCartney reportedly described it as "our comment on the war
Vietnam War
The Vietnam War was a Cold War-era military conflict that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. This war followed the First Indochina War and was fought between North Vietnam, supported by its communist allies, and the government of...
". A photograph of the band smiling amid the mock carnage was used as promotional advertisements for the British release of the "Paperback Writer
Paperback Writer
"Paperback Writer" is a 1966 song recorded and released by The Beatles. Written by Paul McCartney and credited to Lennon–McCartney, the song was released as the A-side of their eleventh single...
" single. Also, a similar photograph from this shoot was used for the cover of the 11 June 1966 edition of the British music magazine Disc
Disc (magazine)
Disc was a weekly British popular music magazine, published between 1958 and 1975, when it was incorporated into Record Mirror. It was also known for periods as Disc Weekly and Disc and Music Echo ....
.
In the United States, Capitol Records
Capitol Records
Capitol Records is a major United States based record label, formerly located in Los Angeles, but operating in New York City as part of Capitol Music Group. Its former headquarters building, the Capitol Tower, is a major landmark near the corner of Hollywood and Vine...
printed approximately 750,000 copies of Yesterday and Today with the same photograph as "Paperback Writer". They were assembled in Capitol's four US plants situated in different cities: Los Angeles, California
Los Angeles, California
Los Angeles , with a population at the 2010 United States Census of 3,792,621, is the most populous city in California, USA and the second most populous in the United States, after New York City. It has an area of , and is located in Southern California...
; Scranton, Pennsylvania
Scranton, Pennsylvania
Scranton is a city in the northeastern part of Pennsylvania, United States. It is the county seat of Lackawanna County and the largest principal city in the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre metropolitan area. Scranton had a population of 76,089 in 2010, according to the U.S...
; Winchester, Virginia
Winchester, Virginia
Winchester is an independent city located in the northwestern portion of the Commonwealth of Virginia in the USA. The city's population was 26,203 according to the 2010 Census...
; and Jacksonville, Illinois
Jacksonville, Illinois
Jacksonville is a city in Morgan County, Illinois, United States. The population was 18,940 at the 2000 census. It is the county seat of Morgan County....
. Numbers designating where the covers originated were printed near the RIAA symbol on the back; for example, stereo copies from the Los Angeles plant are designated "5" and mono Los Angeles copies are marked "6". Mono copies outnumbered stereo copies by about 10 to 1, making the stereo copies far more rare and valuable to collectors. A small fraction of the original covers were shipped to disc jockeys and reviewers as advance copies. Reaction was immediate, as Capitol received complaints from some dealers. The record was immediately recalled under orders from Capitol parent company EMI
EMI
The EMI Group, also known as EMI Music or simply EMI, is a multinational music company headquartered in London, United Kingdom. It is the fourth-largest business group and family of record labels in the recording industry and one of the "big four" record companies. EMI Group also has a major...
chairman Sir Joseph Lockwood and all copies were ordered shipped back to the record label, leading to its rarity and popularity among collectors.
At the time, some of the Beatles defended the use of the Butcher photograph. John Lennon
John Lennon
John Winston Lennon, MBE was an English musician and singer-songwriter who rose to worldwide fame as one of the founding members of The Beatles, one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed acts in the history of popular music...
said that it was "as relevant as Vietnam
Vietnam War
The Vietnam War was a Cold War-era military conflict that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. This war followed the First Indochina War and was fought between North Vietnam, supported by its communist allies, and the government of...
" and McCartney said that their critics were "soft". However, this opinion was not shared by all band members. George Harrison
George Harrison
George Harrison, MBE was an English musician, guitarist, singer-songwriter, actor and film producer who achieved international fame as lead guitarist of The Beatles. Often referred to as "the quiet Beatle", Harrison became over time an admirer of Indian mysticism, and introduced it to the other...
(who became a vegetarian) was quoted as saying that he thought 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." Capitol Records apologised for the offence.
Capitol initially ordered plant managers to destroy the covers, and the Jacksonville plant delivered most of its copies to a landfill. However, faced with so many jackets already printed, Capitol decided instead to paste a much more conventional cover over the old ones. The new cover, featuring a picture of the band posed around an open steamer trunk, had to be trimmed on the open end by about 3 mm (1/8 inch) because the new sheet, known as a "slick", was not placed exactly "square" on top of the original cover. Tens of thousands of these so-called "Trunk" covers were sent out. As word of this manoeuvre became known to the public, owners of the altered cover attempted, usually unsuccessfully, to peel off the pasted-over cover, hoping to reveal the original image hidden beneath. Eventually, the soaring value and desirability of unpasted-over Butcher covers spurred the development of intricate and complex techniques for peeling the Trunk cover off in such a way that only faint horizontal glue lines remained on the original cover.
Copies that have never had the white cover pasted onto them, known as "first state" covers, are very rare and command the highest prices. Copies with the pasted-on cover intact above the butcher image are known as "second state" or "pasteovers"; today, pasteover covers that have remained unpeeled are also becoming increasingly rare and valuable. Covers that have had the Trunk cover removed to reveal the underlying butcher image are known as "third state" covers; these are now the most common (and least valuable, although their value varies depending on how well the cover is removed) as people continue to peel second state covers. The most valuable and highly prized First and Second State Butcher Covers are those that were never opened and remain still sealed in their original shrink wrap. Since the first documented collector's sale of a mono Butcher cover LP in 1974, which fetched US$457.00, the value of first state mono versions has consistently appreciated by around 100% per year.
In 1987, former president of Capitol Records
Capitol Records
Capitol Records is a major United States based record label, formerly located in Los Angeles, but operating in New York City as part of Capitol Music Group. Its former headquarters building, the Capitol Tower, is a major landmark near the corner of Hollywood and Vine...
, Alan Livingston
Alan W. Livingston
Alan Wendell Livingston , born Alan Wendell Levison, was an American businessman best known for his tenures at Capitol Records, first as a writer/producer best-known for creating Bozo the Clown for a series of record-album and illustrative read-along children's book sets, then as the executive who...
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, and kept them in a closet at his home. 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, the five stereo versions being the most rare and valuable of these. In April 2006, Heritage Auction Galleries
Heritage Auction Galleries
Heritage Auction Galleries is the world's largest collectibles auctioneer and the third largest auction house, with over $700 million in annual sales and 600,000 online bidder-members...
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
Public Broadcasting Service
The Public Broadcasting Service is an American non-profit public broadcasting television network with 354 member TV stations in the United States which hold collective ownership. Its headquarters is in Arlington, Virginia....
series Antiques Roadshow
Antiques Roadshow
Antiques Roadshow is a British television show in which antiques appraisers travel to various regions of the United Kingdom to appraise antiques brought in by local people. It has been running since 1979...
. 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, and Roadshow appraiser Gary Sohmers valued it at US$10,000 - $12,000.
Capitol Records of Canada vice president and A&R
A&R
Artists and repertoire is the division of a record label that is responsible for talent scouting and overseeing the artistic development of recording artists. It also acts as a liaison between artists and the record label.- Finding talent :...
head at the time Paul White kept a mono cover and a stereo cover slick for his collection.
There were no music tape versions of the Yesterday ...and Today "Butcher Cover". 8-track tape & Reel to reel tapes were issued approximately one month after the vinyl album was released in 1966 and cassette
Compact Cassette
The Compact Cassette, often referred to as audio cassette, cassette tape, cassette, or simply tape, is a magnetic tape sound recording format. It was designed originally for dictation, but improvements in fidelity led the Compact Cassette to supplant the Stereo 8-track cartridge and reel-to-reel...
tapes were not issued by Capitol Records until 1968.
Track listing
All songs are credited to Lennon–McCartney, except where noted.Side one
- "Drive My CarDrive My Car"Drive My Car" is a song primarily written by Paul McCartney, with lyrical contributions from John Lennon, and first released by The Beatles on the British version of the 1965 album Rubber Soul; it also appeared in North America on the Yesterday and Today collection...
" – 2:30 - "I'm Only SleepingI'm Only Sleeping"I'm Only Sleeping" is a song by The Beatles from their 1966 studio album Revolver. It was released two months earlier in the United States on the album Yesterday And Today and did not feature on the original US version of Revolver...
" – 3:01 - "Nowhere Man" – 2:45
- "Doctor RobertDoctor Robert"Doctor Robert" is a song by The Beatles released on the album Revolver in the United Kingdom and on Yesterday and Today in the United States. The song was written by John Lennon and Paul McCartney. It was recorded in 7 takes on 17 April 1966 with vocals overdubbed 19 April. Lennon said that he was...
" – 2:15 - "YesterdayYesterday (song)"Yesterday" is a song originally recorded by The Beatles for their 1965 album Help!. The song first hit the United Kingdom top 10 three months after the release of Help!. The song remains popular today with more than 1,600 cover versions, one of the most covered songs in the history of recorded...
" – 2:08 - "Act NaturallyAct Naturally"Act Naturally" is a song written by Johnny Russell and Voni Morrison, originally recorded by Buck Owens and the Buckaroos, whose version reached number 1 on the Billboard Country Singles chart in 1963, his first chart-topper...
" (Morrison–Russell) – 2:33
Side two
- "And Your Bird Can SingAnd Your Bird Can Sing"And Your Bird Can Sing" is a song by The Beatles, released on their 1966 album Revolver in the United Kingdom and on Yesterday...and Today in the United States. The songwriting credit is Lennon–McCartney, though the song was written primarily by John Lennon, with contributions by George Harrison...
" – 2:01 - "If I Needed SomeoneIf I Needed Someone"If I Needed Someone" is a song written by George Harrison. Versions by The Beatles and by The Hollies appeared simultaneously, both being released in the United Kingdom on 3 December 1965. The Hollies version appeared on a single. Most of the Hollies previous singles had been big top ten hits...
" (George HarrisonGeorge HarrisonGeorge Harrison, MBE was an English musician, guitarist, singer-songwriter, actor and film producer who achieved international fame as lead guitarist of The Beatles. Often referred to as "the quiet Beatle", Harrison became over time an admirer of Indian mysticism, and introduced it to the other...
) – 2:24 - "We Can Work It OutWe Can Work It Out"We Can Work It Out" is a song by The Beatles, written by Paul McCartney and John Lennon. It was released as a "double A-sided" single with "Day Tripper", the first time both sides of a single were so designated in an initial release...
" – 2:15 - "What Goes On" (Lennon–McCartney–Richard StarkeyRingo StarrRichard Starkey, MBE better known by his stage name Ringo Starr, is an English musician and actor who gained worldwide fame as the drummer for The Beatles. When the band formed in 1960, Starr was a member of another Liverpool band, Rory Storm and the Hurricanes. He became The Beatles' drummer in...
) – 2:51 - "Day TripperDay Tripper"Day Tripper" is a song by The Beatles, released as a double A-side single with "We Can Work It Out". Both songs were recorded during the sessions for the Rubber Soul album...
" – 2:50
External links
- Robert Whitaker Photography, Official Website
- 2011 Auction of "Butcher Cover"
- The history of the butcher cover
- The butcher cover
- The Real Truth Behind The Beatles Butcher Cover, includes detailed discography on all The Beatles Capitol Records releases