The Beatles made a big misstep in 1966. And it was the pre-lude, the warm-up, for a much bigger crisis. It involved artwork for the original release of the single Paperback Writer/Rain in Britain:

...and promotional material in the British Magazine called Disc:

And similar artwork would appear on the U.S. album Yesterday and Today:

This version is known as the Butcher Cover. The album itself was released in the U.S., and contained songs that had appeared on the Beatles’ British albums, but not on American releases. Also included were three songs slated for their next British albums, and two singles. This included Yesterday, Nowhere Man, and We Can Work It Out…among others. The album artwork derived from a photo shoot entitled A Somnambulant Adventure, conducted by Robert Whitaker. I stress adventure, and not possession. Though I will have more to say about in another essay. For some reason, this included photos of the Beatles as butchers, surrounded by pieces of meat, torn up doll parts, or both.

And:

I guess we’re having steak for dinner! Also included were other, bizarre and apparently violent images:

And:

And:

Robert Whittaker had photographed the Beatles before, but nothing like he did on March 25, 1966. Inspiration for the imagery can be traced back to Hans Bellmer, a German writer who, in December 1934, took photos of life-sized mannequins in a bizarre sort of erotic art. These were published as La Poupee…The Doll. And the photos were quite edgy, perhaps…too edgy:

And:

The images are disturbing to say the least. It’s too bad that the Evangelicals didn’t see these…they would have had a field day with them. This project began as a protest against the Nazi party. In 1934, one year after Hitler had seized power in Germany, he published his book titled…Die Puppe. He would also, not surprisingly, take strange and disturbing nude and pornographic photos:

Many of them are considerably more explicit. Also cited as inspiration for the Beatles’ photo-shoot was:

Meret Oppenheim, known especially for:

Lunch in Fur. There are various interpretations and claims about the nature of the symbolism employed as part of The Somnambulant Adventure. Ultimately, McCartney insisted on using the imagery on the cover of the album, claiming, as would Lennon, that he saw it as a statement about the Vietnam war. There weren’t any notable problems with the imagery in the U.K. But as we all know…the U.S. is a totally different place.

Capital records printed 750,000 copies of Yesterday and Today with the Butcher Cover.  On June 20, 1966, these were distributed to record dealers and disc jockeys. It was all downhill from there.

So, the Beatles were promoting infanticide, cannibalism, and sadism. Why do the Beatles want 13 and 14-year-old fans killing their baby brothers and sisters?

British long-hair mophead cannibals? Now I’ll get to the meat of the matter:

This reaction of American disc jockeys would presage a much bigger disaster later in the year.

No, not really a joke.

The Hairy Four? I haven’t seen that one before. A literal horror? Come on, guys…they’re only dolls. Hey! You should read Die Puppe!

Actually, this is a fair statement. The Cannibalistic, Infanticidal Hairy Mopheads from Britain should have been familiar enough with American Moral-Overreaction to realize that the imagery wouldn’t go over well on this side of the Atlantic. But! The Hypocrisy Capital of the World! I will make a grisly point, based on the June 20, 1966 edition of the News-Herald. News of the Beatles’ new album cover:

This appears two columns over:

Such outrage about dead dolls…but no end in sight for the mass exercise in the butchering of Vietnamese children. In America, they don’t count. But silly dolls on the cover of a Rock album bring out the self-righteousness of the Great and Good. What point was Lennon and McCartney trying to make? That’s right…the slaughter in Vietnam. Still, the albums were recalled, some were destroyed, and some were pasted over with a new picture:

Additional stock was printed accordingly. I like this:

The albums with the Butcher Cover are very rare. $1.47? Not bad, seeing how they go for thousands of dollars today. Excuse me, sales clerk, where’s the lower level? And it seems very apt to find a Paul is Dead clue in the new cover!

Yes…Paul in a trunk is really Paul in a coffin!

So you see...Rock music causes sexual immorality, drug addiction, and the worship of Natas. And it causes your children to kill and eat their younger brothers and sisters. Not to mention, it leads to bad behavior too! And I even shared that with Reficul...hahahahahahah-hahahahahaha!

There’s more to say, to be sure. And like I said, the fun goes on and on and on!