By: Bob DiLeo
During the mid 1960s, the band, The Beatles, were highly well known. The four members, John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Star were famous all around the world. Their image was very innocent at this time. With their fandom and platform, they decided that they wanted to make a bold statement about themselves and on an issue that they were all very passionate about.
During this time, the Vietnam war was taking place. To this day, it is still one of the most controversial wars that America has taken place in. The Beatles wanted to make a statement about their opinions on this war. The Beatles knew the type of power and voice they were capable of. John Lennon would even go on to say that the Beatles were “More famous than God.” This was another incident that the band had a big controversy surrounding their name. Even though many Christians were outraged when that was said, John Lennon was right in a way. During that time, the Beatles had the world in the palms of their hands. If they told their audiences to say, do, or believe in something, a good majority of them would. So, if they made a statement about the Vietnam war, they knew that the whole world would be watching.
Their decision on how they were going to speak out against the war was going to be on the cover of their next album of a collection of their recent hit songs, titled Yesterday and Today. The album consisted of mostly friendly songs, such as Nowhere Man, Yesterday, and We Can Work It Out. On the cover of these songs, it was the four members in butcher coats. They had blood and fake, cut up body parts of burnt baby dolls placed on them. They also had cut up pieces of raw meat on them. While the blood and body parts were spread among them, they are looking very happy, in a sociopathic type of way. This photo was taken by the photographer, Robert Whitaker, who they have worked with him before.
During this time period, it was uncommon to protest in any form to our government. No one was speaking out against the Vietnam War and The Beatles infamous incident with this photo was one of the first forms of protest. They thought that by doing this, they were showing how brutal the war was. They thought that if the war was being accepted by our government and citizens, that than this photo should be accepted as well.
Besides the protest, The Beatles did this to try and change how their image was perceived by the public. They felt like people did not look at them as humans, but more like gods. John Lennon went on to say, “There we were, supposed to be sort of angels. I wanted to show that we were really aware of life.” They thought that this would be a good way of trying to humanize themselves.
When this was released, the backlash was instant. Many fans were so confused and disgusted that this friendly band album had such a dark and bloody cover. Even though their sales were not affected by this stunt, they instantly had to stop the production of the albums. They are extremely rare to find now because such a little amount was distributed. During that time, anything similar to this was nowhere near acceptable. During the 60’s, nothing provocative was accepted in anyway. This was proactive, times ten. Many people did not want to see something this brutal on an album cover. Even in today’s world, something like this would still be controversial. Just over a year ago, Kathy Griffin did something similar by holding a decapitated head of our President, which almost ruined her career instantly.
Even though The Beatles’ careers were not ruined by this, this was still something that was poorly decided on. Even the member George Harrison had his doubts about this picture, saying “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.” This was not the best way for this amazing band to protest the war. They should have realized that they were musicians who were good at their jobs. They would be so much better at getting their message across in a less offensive and more effective way through their lyrics. They would eventually go down that path and make the still very relevant song, “Revolution”. The song spoke out against the Vietnam War and helped shape John Lennon’s future role in the Peace Movement. Even though they were able to get passed this stunt, this will always remain a very odd and bizarre time for this band.
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