Written by Penny Nolte
Last fall, beginning to downsize, we met a local vinyl expert interested in taking a look at our collection. A young guy, with a long, bushy red beard and thick, black-framed glasses. Dressed in Carhartt coveralls over a flannel shirt, he looked for all the world like the archetypical hippy, music nerd, though fifty years younger than the originals we remembered. Pouring over the vintage plastic crates we carried in from our car, he exclaimed things like, “Ah, Desmond Decker, that’s some early reggae,” and “Live Dead over Europe, far out.” He offered a few dollars for the lot, saying his friend who owned a thrift shop might be able to sell some. What was attractive to us was his enthusiasm. A couple of dollars would be nice, we said, but our hopewas the collection, carefully curated over decades spent shopping in seconds bins, could go to people who enjoyed the music.
He was genuinely appreciative of the gift, saying, “Don’t worry, man, I won’t cheat you. If there’s something valuable, I’ll let you know.”
“Groovy,” we said, not expecting to hear from him again.
Time passed. Then one spring day, we stopped by just to say, “Hi.” Our friend became animated, offering us a tape deck to play cassettes. We laughed, the whole premise of downsizing being to get rid of stuff, after all. He excused himself for a moment, said he had to use the bathroom, then bolted out the back door instead. A little strange, but you know, hippies. He was gone for a while.
“Bathroom must be next door,” we joked.
Rushing back in, with a wild look in his eyes and waving his arms in the air, he yelled, “Yesterday & Today is a Second State Butcher!” We blinked. He repeated, louder, “A SECOND STATE BUTCHER!” My husband glanced toward the door, judging distances should we need to run for it.
Hiding my fear, I stepped forward and said, “I’m sorry, but we don’t understand. What does it mean?” He took a deep breath and calmed down, a little. Then he explained that the Beatles’ albumYesterday & Today originally had a different picture on the front, known as The Butcher Cover, which the band claimed was surreal. It was rejected big time by Capital Records but only after some pressings with the first cover had shipped and sold.
I remembered something about this because Mom had tried to peel the front of my album, long ago, having heard about the switched covers, herself. I stopped her, but not before she tore George’s ear off. There didn’t seem to be anything underneath.
Our young friend, well versed in this footnote of The Beatles’ history, informed us that when one peels the overlayer by picking at it it spoils the hidden picture underneath. But, he said, there is a chemical process for removing the overlayer successfully and only three people in the world know how.
Why did he think the original was underneath?
He said he’d seen hundreds of Yesterday & Today albums, and none had any signs of something being underneath. For example, Ringo’s black turtleneck from the original cover shows up on ours as a ghostly triangle through the overlayer. Also, information printed on the spine of our record is partially covered by the front picture. He explained patiently this could not have happened during the original production.
But what did second state mean?
We were told the first state is the original cover as the Beatles wanted it, one that had never been hidden. A second state has the replacement cover pasted on top. It may have been picked at a little but is still largely intact. While a third state is an original that was covered up and has been revealed completely, without being damaged in the process.
Calm now, and back to showing pure enthusiasm, our friend said he’d been looking for one of these covers his whole life, but if we wanted it back, we could have it. He admitted this had been a hard decision for him, some friends had told him to keep it and not tell us, and he just couldn’t do that. Given the existential crisis we witnessed earlier, it had been very hard for him.
We thanked him, saying, “You’re the best!”
And he said, “No, you’re the best!”
Us, “We won’t forget this!”
Him, “I love you guys!”
That is how we have The Beatles’ “Second State Butcher” framed on the wall. And the shared experience of giving and receiving?
Priceless, man.
.
Penny Nolte creates gentle narratives of family and place. Her newest work can be found in The Avalon Literary Review, Nowhere Girl Collective, Coalitionist, Macrame Literary Journal, Dorothy Parker’s Ashes, and Journal of Expressive Writing, among others. Originally from upstate New York, with a fortifying decade in Colorado, Penny now calls the Green Mountains of Vermont home.