By 1965, The Beatles were fed up with their friendly, mop-top image. 

Their fans were mostly twelve-year-old girls, they’d done two slapstick movies, and they even had a Scooby-Doo-style Saturday morning cartoon. But in reality, they were four grown men who were fighting, dropping acid, and getting into some pretty dark stuff. So they wanted to go with something like that for an album cover but they kind of went too hard.

They hired surrealist photographer Robert Whitaker to take some photos. He showed up with a bunch of cages, hammers, nails, raw meat, and dirty baby dolls. The result is a totally insane set of photos, wherein the Fab Four look like they… you know, killed a bunch of babies.