JOHN  LENNON "Two Virgins" U.S & U.K. LPs

$

178

JOHN LENNON Two Copies "Two Virgins"
Original Apple Album from 1968

  Offered are TWO original pressings of "Unfinished Music No.1: Two Virgins" by JOHN LENNON and YOKO ONO, released November 29, 1968. One is the rare British pressing, SAPCOR 2 (Track Records 613 012), with no covering sleeve. The record is NEAR MINT, except for some tiny surface scuffs. The jacket is VERY FINE - NEAR MINT, some very slight seam wear. Also offered is the American pressing, Apple T 5001, with the brown paper cover sleeve and peekaboo holes. The record is VERY GOOD - FINE, the jacket is VERY GOOD, some seam tears and a price sticker on the front of the censored sleeve.
"Unfinished Music No.1: Two Virgins" was produced by John Lennon and Yoko Ono in 1968. The original premise of the "Unfinished Music" series was that John and Yoko were going to chronicle their lives together on record release, this is the first of these. Recorded one May morning between midnight and dawn in 1968 at John's Kenwood mansion in Weybridge (probably Sunday May 19, 1968). John's wife, Cynthia, had gone on holiday to Greece with Jennie Boyd and Magic Alex. Yoko had expressed an interest in John's avant-garde recordings using his home recording system, and they decided to make an album together.
The album's title came from the couple's feeling that they were "two innocents, lost in a world gone mad", and because after making the recording, the two consummated their relationship for the first time. The recording consists largely of tape loops, playing while Lennon tries out different instruments (piano, organ, drums) and sound effects (including reverb, delay and distortion), changes tapes and plays other recordings, and converses with Ono, who vocalises ad-lib in response to the sounds. Lennon's longtime friend Pete Shotton remembered later that many of the loops were made by Lennon and himself, in the days before the recording. Lennon recorded directly to two-track stereo, but much of the source material was monophonic.
More interesting than the "music" was the album cover. The couple used a time-delay camera to take nude photographs of themselves, for the album's cover; the front showed them frontally nude, while the rear showed them from behind. (The photos were taken not at Kenwood, but at Ringo Starr's basement apartment at Montagu Square, where Lennon and Ono stayed later that year.)
It took almost six months to convince the other Beatles to approve the project , and even though Paul was strongly against the sleeve, he still contributed with a one line sleeve note which reads: "When two great Saints meet, it is a humbling experience. The long battles to prove he was a Saint."
The next obstacle was the record company, who refused release unless the pictures were changed. Eventually the album was distributed by Track records in the U.K. (as catalogue number 613 012) ... under one condition ... that it was wrapped in a brown paper bag.
But even with approval, the record company printers wouldn`t print it, and many record shops refused to stock it. Even the music press opposed it and no editor would accept any of the ads. Not surprisingly, it sold only around 5,000 copies and did not enter the charts.
The cover provoked a public outrage. Copies of the album were impounded as obscene in several jurisdictions (including 30,000 copies in New Jersey). Lennon commented that the uproar seemed to have less to do with the explicit nudity, and more to do with the fact that the pair were rather unattractive (and the photo unflattering; Lennon described it later as a picture of "two slightly overweight ex-junkies"). Nevertheless, the taboo-breaking album cover was perhaps the first time that a male celebrity of any consequence had exposed himself so thoroughly to the public.

Album Tracks include: SIDE ONE "Two Virgins Side One": – 14:14 All selections by John Lennon and Yoko Ono unless otherwise noted. "Two Virgins No. 1" "Together" (George Buddy DeSylva-Lew Brown-Ray Henderson) "Two Virgins No. 2" "Two Virgins No. 3" "Two Virgins No. 4" "Two Virgins No. 5"
SIDE TWO "Two Virgins Side Two": – 15:13 "Two Virgins No. 6" "Hushabye Hushabye" (composer unknown) "Two Virgins No. 7" "Two Virgins No. 8" "Two Virgins No. 9" "Two Virgins No. 10"


I hope you will be the lucky bidder to win this auction. This record would be a great addition to any Beatles collection.     I will ship immediately upon receipt of your remittance. Satisfaction Guaranteed! No refunds given for damage in transit if insurance is not purchased.

Happy bidding!