US Release date : Jun 15, 1966
By The Beatles • LP • Part of the collection “The Beatles • The original US LPs”
Last updated on November 1, 2023
Session Jun 14, 1966 • Recording "Here, There And Everywhere"
Album Jun 15, 1966 • "Yesterday and Today (Butcher cover - Stereo)" by The Beatles released in the US
Album Jun 15, 1966 • "Yesterday and Today (Butcher cover - Mono)" by The Beatles released in the US
TV show Jun 16, 1966 • Top Of The Pops
Session Jun 16, 1966 • Recording "Here, There And Everywhere"
Next album Jun 20, 1966 • "Yesterday and Today (Mono)" by The Beatles released in the US
This album was recorded during the following studio sessions:
2:31 • Studio version • B1 • Mono • Mono made from [B] by Capitol
Paul McCartney : Backing vocals, Bass, Lead guitar, Lead vocals, Rhythm guitar Ringo Starr : Cowbell, Drums, Tambourine John Lennon : Backing vocals, Lead vocals, Piano George Harrison : Backing vocals, Electric guitar George Martin : Producer Norman Smith : Recording engineer
SessionRecording : Oct 13, 1965 • Studio : EMI Studios, Studio Two, Abbey Road
SessionMixing : Oct 26, 1965 • Studio : EMI Studios, Studio Two, Abbey Road
3:03 • Studio version • A • Mono
Paul McCartney : Backing vocals, Bass Ringo Starr : Drums John Lennon : Acoustic rhythm guitar, Vocals George Harrison : Backing vocals, Lead guitar George Martin : Producer Geoff Emerick : Recording engineer
SessionRecording : Apr 27, 1966 • Studio : EMI Studios, Studio Three, Abbey Road
SessionOverdubs : Apr 29, May 5, May 6, 1966 • Studio : EMI Studios, Studio Three, Abbey Road
SessionMixing : May 12, 1966 • Studio : EMI Studios, Studio Three, Abbey Road
2:40 • Studio version • A • Mono
Paul McCartney : Bass, Lead vocals Ringo Starr : Drums John Lennon : Acoustic guitar, Lead guitar, Lead vocals George Harrison : Backing vocals, Lead guitar George Martin : Producer Norman Smith : Recording engineer
SessionRecording : Oct 22, 1965 • Studio : EMI Studios, Studio Two, Abbey Road • London • UK
SessionMixing : Oct 25, 1965 • Studio : EMI Studios, Studio Two, Abbey Road
2:17 • Studio version • A • Mono
Paul McCartney : Backing vocals, Bass Ringo Starr : Drums John Lennon : Harmonium, Rhythm guitar, Vocals George Harrison : Backing vocals, Lead guitar, Maracas George Martin : Producer Geoff Emerick : Recording engineer
SessionRecording : Apr 17, 1966 • Studio : EMI Studios, Studio Two, Abbey Road
SessionOverdubs : Apr 19, 1966 • Studio : EMI Studios, Studio Two, Abbey Road
SessionMixing : May 12, 1966 • Studio : EMI Studios, Studio Three, Abbey Road
2:07 • Studio version • A • Mono
Paul McCartney : Guitar, Vocals George Martin : Producer Norman Smith : Recording engineer Tony Gilbert : Violin Sidney Sax : Violin Kenneth Essex : Viola Francesc Gabarró Solé : Cello
SessionRecording : Jun 14, 1965 • Studio : EMI Studios, Studio Two, Abbey Road
SessionMixing : Jun 17, 1965 • Studio : EMI Studios, Studio Two, Abbey Road
Written by Johnny Russell, Voni Morrison
2:31 • Studio version • A • Mono
Paul McCartney : Bass, Harmony vocals Ringo Starr : Drums, Sticks, Vocals John Lennon : Acoustic rhythm guitar George Harrison : Lead guitar George Martin : Producer Norman Smith : Recording engineer
SessionRecording : Jun 17, 1965 • Studio : EMI Studios, Studio Two, Abbey Road
SessionMixing : Jun 18, 1965 • Studio : EMI Studios, Studio Two, Abbey Road
2:03 • Studio version • A • Mono
Paul McCartney : Backing vocals, Bass, Handclaps, Lead guitar Ringo Starr : Drums, Handclaps, Tambourine John Lennon : Handclaps, Rhythm guitar, Vocals George Harrison : Backing vocals, Handclaps, Lead guitar George Martin : Producer Geoff Emerick : Recording engineer
SessionRecording : Apr 26, 1966 • Studio : EMI Studios, Studio Two, Abbey Road
SessionMixing : May 12, 1966 • Studio : EMI Studios, Studio Three, Abbey Road
Written by George Harrison
2:20 • Studio version • A • Mono
Paul McCartney : Backing vocals, Bass Ringo Starr : Drums, Tambourine John Lennon : Backing vocals, Electric guitar George Harrison : Electric guitar, Lead vocals George Martin : Producer Norman Smith : Recording engineer
SessionRecording : Oct 16, 1965 • Studio : EMI Studios, Studio Two, Abbey Road
SessionOverdubs : Oct 18, 1965 • Studio : EMI Studios, Studio Two, Abbey Road
SessionMixing : Oct 25, 1965 • Studio : EMI Studios, Studio Two, Abbey Road
2:17 • Studio version • A • Mono
Paul McCartney : Bass, Vocals Ringo Starr : Drums John Lennon : Acoustic rhythm guitar, Harmonium, Vocals George Harrison : Tambourine George Martin : Producer Norman Smith : Recording engineer
SessionRecording : Oct 20, 1965 • Studio : EMI Studios, Studio Two, Abbey Road
SessionMixing : Oct 28, 1965 • Studio : EMI Studios, Studio Two, Abbey Road
SessionOverdubs & mixing : Oct 29, 1965 • Studio : EMI Studios, Studio Two, Abbey Road
Written by Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, John Lennon
2:47 • Studio version • A • Mono
Paul McCartney : Backing vocals, Bass Ringo Starr : Drums, Lead vocals John Lennon : Backing vocals, Electric guitar George Harrison : Electric guitar George Martin : Producer Norman Smith : Recording engineer
SessionRecording : Nov 04, 1965 • Studio : EMI Studios, Studio Two, Abbey Road
SessionMixing : Nov 09, 1965 • Studio : EMI Studios, Room 65, Abbey Road
2:51 • Studio version • B • Mono
Paul McCartney : Backing vocals, Bass, Lead vocals Ringo Starr : Drums, Tambourine John Lennon : Backing vocals, Electric guitar, Lead guitar, Lead vocals George Harrison : Backing vocals, Electric guitar George Martin : Producer Norman Smith : Recording engineer
SessionRecording : Oct 16, 1965 • Studio : EMI Studios, Studio Two, Abbey Road
SessionMixing : Oct 29, 1965 • Studio : EMI Studios, Studio Two, Abbey Road
See Yesterday and Today (Mono)
I don’t think I ever quarrelled with them musically at all. The only time I ever really came to blows with them was over something quite different, which was a record sleeve. It was one that was never issued here. They were dressed up as butchers, and it came out in America. It was their idea of a joke.
George Martin – From interview with Melody Maker, August 21, 1971
We took the pictures in London at one of those photo sessions. By then we were really sort of beginning to hate it. A photo session was a big ordeal, and you had to try and look normal, and you didn’t feel it. And the photographer was a bit of a surrealist, you know? And he brought along all these babies and pieces of meat and doctors’ coats, so we really got into it, and that’s how we felt, eurgh! So we sort of — I especially — pushed for it to be an album cover, just to break the image, you know?
John Lennon – From John Lennon on the Dennis Elsas Show, WNEW-FM, 28 Sept 1974.
Beatles put firm in a dilemma
A change of mind by the Beatles has put a major US record company in a big dilemma. The company would gladly have paid a fortune for a machine to rip records out of their covers and put them in new wrappers this past week. What happened? A little joke left the record company’s executives grinning rather grimly.
The Beatles sent a photograph from London to grace their new album, “Yesterday and Today,” with the word that this was the cover they wanted.
Picture the Beatles, each widely grinning. wearing stained white butcher’s smocks, their figures draped with dismembered doll torsos and assorted cuts of meat, captured in living colour. The company muttered “no” several dozen times when the picture reached them, but they couldn’t say no too firmly and Brian Epstein and his four charges prevailed.
About one million copies of the album were pressed at the factory and nearly as many album covers had been run off. Then the Beatles’ organisation decided to withdraw the covers from the market and substitute a milder form of art.
Little wonder the company is in a panic.
From Evening Post – June 20, 1966

Red, dead meat Beatles pic costs £25,000!
FIRST, of course, there’s been a great row over the BEATLE album cover with the lumps of red, dead, winking meat. As you may have read, Capitol called in all the covers and destroyed them. Well… almost all. The fly people kept theirs and they’re now collectors’ items.
It was unfortunate for Capitol that they’d sent copies to all the fan club presidents, to the record reviewers and to the radio stations, before deciding to change the cover and substitute what the company call a “more suitable photograph.”
I never heard such controversy over any album cover. Most people are shocked by it; some are very sad about the departure from the jovial wide-eyed Beatle thing; many of us wonder about it and none of us is amused for very long.
Me? I don’t think it’s a good picture. I think the concept is naive.
Enough of that. It’s cost Capitol 500,000 album covers and about 75,000 dollars (£25,000). […]
From Disc And Music Echo – June 25, 1966

BEATLES COVER TROUBLE
The release of the Beatles’ latest U.S. album was held up for a week following protests over the cover. The LP was eventually released last week.
Titled “Yesterday And Today the album’s cover was a colour picture of the Beatles in butchers aprons and surrounded by pieces of meat and sections of dolls.
Many thousands of covers were withdrawn last week and replaced by a “a more suitable” picture.
A spokesman for NEMS told the RM: “We obviously have a say in what goes on the Beatles’ cover, if they put out something that we absolutely hated we would put our foot down. It doesn’t worry us that they aren’t using it. It will not be used as the cover for their next LP here, though.”
From Record Mirror – July 2, 1966

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