The picture is uncropped and undistorted, and has never been published. In the various books showcasing Freeman's photographs of the Beatles, there have never been any pictures showing any shots that were taken at John Lennon's home for the Rubber Soul cover, so most Beatles fans assumed the pictures had been forever lost since Freeman didn't seem to have them, or at least wasn't including them in any books. This picture, if it is the real thing and not a really good forgery, is a shot that many fans have always wanted to see. Its interesting to see that it must have been very cold that day as you see Paul's hands inside his shirt sleeves.
As for the cover, and why it was distorted, the story goes that the Beatles were reviewing some of the pictures Freeman had taken as slide projections on a piece of cardboard cut out to be the size of an album cover, when the piece of cardboard slipped slightly, and created a distorted and stretched image that the Beatles really liked. Presumably, it must have looking something like this:
The distorted image works well as it allows all 4 faces to fit very close together on the album cover:
One interesting thing to note about the Rubber Soul cover is that "Beatles" does not appear on the cover. This is likely one of the first times a record was released where the name of the group didn't even have to appear on the cover since the band was so immediately recognizable.
At this point, nobody seems to know the source of the photo, which is why there is a slight bit of question as to whether it is authentic, or whether it might be a really good forgery. Here's hoping whoever released this photo has a few other shots from that photo session!
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5 comments:
Awesome!
Absolutely magnificent
Not sure why Beckett and SCD both refer to the Fleer baseball decals as 1960, 1961 & 1962 but the Fleer cards as 1960, 1961 & 1963 issues?? No 1962 cards were released by Fleer according to both. More reason to support that they are just guessing about the 1962 decals.
RF
"Rubber Soul" IS in fact the VERY FIRST album that did not have the name of the artist on the front cover (though it does say "The Beatles" on the back cover).
P. S. Why is "Rubber Soul" an oxymoron?
The more rubbers, the fewer souls.
The Rolling Stones debut album, released in April 1964 was in fact the first album which didn't feature the artist's name (or for that matter the album title!). Rubber Soul is an absolute classic and my favourite Beatles album, I love everything about it. Eight years on I'm still none the wiser on whether the fascinating uncropped photo which surfaced online in 2013 is genuine or an elaborate hoax. Can anyone shed any light on this? Sadly Robert Freeman passed away in November 2019 so asking the photographer is no longer an option.
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