Album Cover
The two images that inspired the cover art by Neon Park: the September 1956 cover to Man's Life magazine (left) and a 1953 Schick electric shaver ad (right).Frank Zappa recruited artist Neon Park to create a subversive image based on a cover story from the September 1956 issue of Man's Life, a Men's adventure magazine. After showing Neon a copy of the magazine, Zappa inquired, "This is it. What can you do that's worse than this?" Neon's answer was to craft a parody of an advertisement for Schick brand electric razor based on the "Weasels Ripped My Flesh" theme. The record company released the album despite its reservations about the album cover.
The Man's Life cover had been given to Zappa by a youthful acolyte, Dan O'Brien, who had acquired it from his brother, a musician and aspiring Zappa protégé who had found it during his day job at a pornographic publishing house. Dan also was the originator of the term "chunga" which he had used in a song to describe mutants after the Hiroshima blast.
German releases of the album featured an album cover showing a metal baby caught in a rat trap. This cover was not approved by Zappa.
Burnt Weeny Sandwich and Weasels Ripped My Flesh were also reissued together on vinyl as 2 Originals of the Mothers of Invention, with the original covers used as the left and right sides of the inner spread, and the front cover depicting a pistol shooting toothpaste onto a toothbrush.
Read more about this topic: Weasels Ripped My Flesh
Famous quotes containing the words album and/or cover:
“What a long strange trip it’s been.”
—Robert Hunter, U.S. rock lyricist. “Truckin’,” on the Grateful Dead album American Beauty (1971)
“If only I could vanish in darkness, and thick darkness would cover my face!”
—Bible: Hebrew, Job 23:17.