John Lennon Didn’t Want to Look ‘Sexy or Good’ on 1 Revealing Album Cover
While John Lennon was still in The Beatles, he put out an album with a cover that shocked people around the world. His bandmates even had to field calls from reporters about it. On the cover of Two Virgins, one of three experimental albums Lennon released with Yoko Ono, the couple posed naked. When his aunt saw the image, she complained that Lennon looked ugly. This, he said, was his intention.
John Lennon surprised people with one album cover
In 1968, Lennon and Ono released Two Virgins. The cover featured full frontal nudity, prompting many record stores to put the album in a paper bag in order to sell it. Lennon shared the intention behind the photograph.
“We were both a bit embarrassed when we peeled off for the picture, so I took it myself with a delayed-action shutter,” he said in The Beatles Anthology. “The picture was to prove that we are not a couple of demented freaks, that we are not deformed in any way and that our minds are healthy. If we can make society accept these kind of things without offense, without sniggering, then we shall be achieving our purpose.”
He said that while he wanted to present them as “healthy,” he also wanted the picture to be unflattering.
“What we did purposely is not have a pretty photograph; not have it lighted so as we looked sexy or good,” he said. “There were a couple of other takes from that session where we looked rather nice, hid the little bits that aren’t that beautiful; we looked good. We used the straightest, most unflattering picture just to show that we were human.”
How did John Lennon’s bandmates react to the album cover?
Paul McCartney, who wrote the album notes for Two Virgins, agreed with Lennon’s assessment of the photo.
“It wasn’t a glamorous picture; it wasn’t a nudie model with Elastoplast and clear sellotape holding them up and stuff,” he said. “It was the real thing: them baring it all to the world. But that was the whole idea with Two Virgins.”
George Harrison agreed, calling the photo harmless but “not very nice looking.” Ringo Starr found it a bit more shocking.
“The cover was the mind-blower — I remember to this day the moment when they came in and showed me,” he said. “I don’t really remember the music, I’d have to play it now. But he showed me the cover and I pointed to the Times: ‘Oh, you’ve even got the Times in it…’ as if he didn’t have his d*** hanging out.”
All of Lennon’s bandmates were reportedly upset about the publicity the album brought them, though.
He explained why they called the album ‘Two Virgins’
Lennon and Ono worked on Two Virgins shortly before his divorce from his first wife, Cynthia. She was in Greece on vacation, and Lennon had Ono over to their house. While both Lennon and Ono had been married and had children — decidedly making them not virgins — everything felt fresh and new for them. The album title was born of this feeling.
“We felt like two virgins because we were in love, just met, and we were trying to make something,” Lennon said. “And we thought to show everything. People are always looking at people like me, trying to see some secret: ‘What do they do? Do they go to the bathroom? Do they eat?’ So we just said, ‘Here.’”
