Attention Beatles fans or record collectors: got an extra $5,000 laying around? That’s the price for a unique piece of the Fab Four. A local record store is offering up an album that was literally butchered by the Beatles.
“Yesterday” is considered one of the prettiest songs ever recorded by the Beatles. So how did it wind up on an album with a cover like this?
Giovanni Hanna: “‘The Beatles: Yesterday And Today.'”
What’s with all the bloody slop on the mop-tops?
Deco went to Fruit Fly Records in Coral Gables to find out.
Giovanni Hanna: “Really cool picture, it’s cool to see them just as, you know, butchers/scientists with something you really don’t see in their history ever taking something, you know, a picture this ugly so I think the contrast with this and everything that comes before it is huge.”
Most fans weren’t ready to see pieces of raw meat and hacked-up doll parts on an album from the boys.
Giovanni Hanna: “People start purchasing them but they quickly get pulled off the shelves and get sent back to the U.K. with the idea that, you know, that this image is a little too much in the U.S.”
Their record company made a move to stop the Beatle backlash.
Giovanni Hanna: “And have another image posted on top of it and glued back on top.”
That’s the shot most people recognize.
But here’s the main reason the record is going for $5,000.
Giovanni Hanna: “A lot of people, they’re using steam with the idea of peeling this image off so that they can see the image underneath.”
That version of “Yesterday and Today” is up for sale at Fruit Fly.
It’s filled with songs by the Beatles that have never been on an album before.
You’ve got “Day Tripper” and “Nowhere Man.”
Five-thousand-dollars is a lot to fork over for a record.
Here’s why you might want to dig up the green for this one.
Giovanni Hanna: “So with every decade that goes by, the number of copies like this one goes down and they just continue to become a collector’s item.”
Why would the most famous group of all time pose for a butcher photo at the height of their popularity? Ringo Starr has a good reason.
Ringo Starr in 1995 interview on “The Phil Donahue Show”: “It seemed like a good idea at the time.”
FOR MORE INFORMATION
Fruit Fly Records
430 S Dixie Hwy
Coral Gables, FL 33146
Website
Copyright 2026 Sunbeam Television Corp. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.