Although the photo was intended to be part of a larger work critiquing the adulation afforded the Beatles, the band members insisted it was a statement against the Vietnam War.

In response to retailers' concern over the gory subject matter, Capitol immediately withdrew the LP and replaced the cover image with a shot of the band posed around a steamer trunk.

[10] Similarly, the February 1966 single "Nowhere Man" – a song Capitol omitted from its reconfigured Rubber Soul in December 1965 – was a typical practice whereby the company exploited the most commercial-sounding EMI LP tracks and signalled a forthcoming album.

It includes material drawing on the American folk and country styles, and songs that anticipate British psychedelia in their drug-inspired lyrics and musical experimentation.

[16] The hodge-podge nature in which Capitol repackaged their work for the North American market infuriated the Beatles,[17] as it did Brian Epstein and George Martin, the band's manager and record producer, respectively.

[21][22] In a 1974 interview, Lennon complained that the Beatles "put a lot of work into the sequencing" of their albums and that they were told "there was some rule or something" against issuing the full fourteen-song LPs in the US, which led to Capitol releases such as Yesterday and Today.

[24] Having spent three months away from the public eye, the band members had expanded their interests and were eager to depart from the formula imposed on them as pop stars, both in their music and in their presentation.

[29] He planned a conceptual art piece titled A Somnambulant Adventure,[30] which he later described as "a considered disruption of the conventions surrounding orthodox pop star promotional photography".

[32] Whitaker assembled props such as plastic doll parts, trays of meat, white butchers' coats, a hammer and nails, a birdcage, cardboard boxes, and sets of false teeth and eyes.

[33][34] During the shoot, he took several reels of film of the band members interacting with the objects,[35] culminating in a series of photos of the group dressed in the white coats and draped with pieces of meat and body parts from the baby dolls.

"[31][nb 3] For the front cover, or left-hand portion of the triptych,[41] Whitaker planned to use a photo of the Beatles holding two strings of sausages, symbolising umbilical cords, that appeared to connect to the belly of a woman whose back was to camera.

[44] In a 2002 interview published in Mojo magazine, Livingston recalled that his principal contact was with McCartney, who pushed strongly for the photo to be used as the album cover and described it as "our comment on the [Vietnam] war".

[50][51] Rather than being submitted as an afterthought, the trunk photo had been pasted onto a mock-up LP sleeve and was being considered by Epstein while the Beatles filmed promotional clips for "Paperback Writer" and "Rain" at Chiswick House on 20 May.

[54][nb 5] Music critic Tim Riley describes it as "tame" but, due to the Beatles' sullen expressions, still evocative of their will to ridicule the standard band portrait.

[49] On 10 June, Capitol launched "Operation Retrieve",[64][65] recalling all copies of the LP from distributors to replace the offending image,[27] as well as items such as promotional posters.

[57] On 14 June, Capitol sent a memo to reviewers asking them to disregard the artwork and quoting Livingston's explanation that "The original cover, created in England, was intended as 'pop art' satire.

[71] A different photo from the shoot appeared in full colour on the cover of the 11 June edition of Disc and Music Echo;[72][73] lacking the doll parts but retaining the raw meat,[74] the image was accompanied by a caption reading, "Beatles: What a Carve-Up!

[77] Some US commentators and music industry executives viewed the cover imagery as a statement on Capitol's policy of "butchering" the Beatles' albums for the North American market.

[78][nb 7] In her study of the band's contemporary audience, sociologist Candy Leonard says that some fans recall interpreting the "butcher cover" in this way and supporting the Beatles "and their sense of humour".

"[86] Despite Capitol's recall of the original LP, some distributors had already delivered stock to retailers, and copies were sold to customers in line with the scheduled 15 June release date.

"[92] Writing in the October issue of HiFi/Stereo Review, Gene Lees said that the butcher cover was indicative of the Beatles' "contempt for society" and of the same "obnoxious arrogance" that they had demonstrated in their "insulting behavior" towards Imelda Marcos.

Lees opined that the group's music had deteriorated along with their charm; he found the LP "dull through repetition" and a "grab-bag", with the title track the most appealing but still a "pretty miserable" performance and lyrically "cluttered to the point of incomprehensibility".

[100] During that time, the Beatles played their final concert tour, in the US and Canada, and included "Yesterday", "Nowhere Man", "If I Needed Someone" and "Day Tripper" in their set list.

[106]Writing in the 21st century, both Tim Riley[107] and American Songwriter journalist Jim Beviglia classified Yesterday and Today as a compilation album.

[110] The international standardisation of their catalogue was established in 1987 with the CD release of their original EMI/Parlophone albums, followed by the two-volume Past Masters compilation containing all the band's non-album singles.

In a review of the box set for Mojo magazine, Jon Savage described Yesterday and Today as a "rag-bag of material" for which the withdrawn butcher cover was an apt depiction, since the album represented "the worst piece of vandalism" carried out by Capitol on the band's music.

Although he acknowledged that the company's approach was in keeping with all of the band's previous US releases, Savage was critical of Capitol's failure to include "Paperback Writer" and its B-side, "Rain", and for leaving the US version of Revolver with "three key songs ... ripped from its heart".

[112] The original LP sleeves for Yesterday and Today were assembled at Capitol's US plants situated in different cities: Los Angeles, California; Scranton, Pennsylvania; and Jacksonville, Illinois.

These albums were first offered for sale at a Beatlefest convention at the Marriott Hotel near Los Angeles International Airport on Thanksgiving weekend 1987 by Livingston's son.

[114] An extremely rare original "first state" stereo copy that was not from the Livingston collection was presented for appraisal at a 2003 Chicago taping of the PBS series Antiques Roadshow.