When one door closes, another one opens, and that certainly seemed to be true for The Beatles as they tried to shoot the cover photo for their debut album, Please Please Me. The original artwork idea came from producer George Martin, who opted to continue the “beetle” pun of The Beatles’ band name and photograph the band posing in front of the London Zoo’s Insect House. Easier said than done.
“I was a fellow of London Zoo and, rather stupidly, thought that it would be great to have The Beatles photographed outside the insect house,” Martin recalled in Mark Lewisohn’s The Complete Beatles Recording Sessions: The Official Story of the Abbey Road Years. “But the zoo people were very stuffy indeed. ‘We don’t allow these kind of photographs on our premises, quite out of keeping with the good taste of the Zoological Society of London.’ So, the idea fell down.”
He added, “I bet they regret it now.” And indeed, the society would have reason to. Please Please Me was a monumental debut, kicking off Beatlemania in the U.K. and remaining in the Top 10 for over a year.
How the Actual Beatles Debut Album Cover Artwork Came To Be
When The Beatles were scurrying around the London Zoo’s Insect House, they were still a group of unknown, ragtag youths from Liverpool. In hindsight, it’s not that surprising that the Zoological Society of London would object to using their grounds as a set for rebellious rock ‘n’ rollers. Nevertheless, the band was quick on their feet that fateful day, and the crew left the zoo grounds and headed to EMI’s headquarters on London’s Manchester Square.
Martin called theatre photographer Angus McBean to help with their new photoshoot. McBean came up with the image we know as the cover of Please Please Me today: four fresh-faced Beatles peering over a banister, smiling at the camera. The rest of the stairwell’s spiral is visible in the background.
In The Making Of Sgt. Pepper (via BeatlesBible), Martin recalled reaching out to McBean, who responded right away. “Bingo,” Martin said. “He came ‘round and did it there and then. It was done in an almighty rush, like the music. Thereafter, though, The Beatles’ own creativity came bursting to the ‘fore.”
Even without an official release of Please Please Me in the States, the photograph of the young Beatles grinning over the stairwell banister has become synonymous with the earliest days of Beatlemania. The band recreated the iconic image, then much hairier, with bushier mustaches and groovier suits, for The Beatles matching compilation albums, 1962-1966 (the “Red Album”) and 1967-1970 (the “Blue” and aforementioned groovier album).
Photo by Evening Standard/Hulton Archive/Getty Images