Awesome Album Covers: Steppenwolf And “At Your Birthday Party”
Steppenwolf - At Your Birthday Party (ABC Dunhill, 1969)
Earlier today we named the Three Best Songs on Steppenwolf‘s At Your Birthday Party album. Now let’s take a closer look at the cover that contained the music.
The cover of At Your Birthday Party, the third album in the Steppenwolf catalog, was designed by Gary Burden.
With the original pressing of the record, the cloud-like circle you see on the cover was actually a punch-out that revealed a picture of the band on the right hand side of the inner gatefold.
“This photo of the band was shot by Henry Diltz,” says Wikipedia, “and it shows the band sitting in the remnants of amplifiers and equipment in a charred house in a that had belonged to Canned Heat. (A 1969 fire ripped through Canned Heat’s house and rehearsal studio on Lookout Mountain Ave in Laurel Canyon, Los Angeles, California).”
The front cover images that surround the cutout of the band were created by pasting mouse ears on the bodies of soldiers from a Civil War scene, a protest appropos of the time. When ABC Records refused to pay its creator Rick Griffin to paint the final version of the battle scene, the prototype collage he created was used instead.
For more on what’s inside, take a look at our Three Best Songs post on this album from earlier today.
“Rock Me” may (or may not) be there.
For all the men that tried to treat her wrong
Though just a baby, awaiting her tomorrow
It's rock me baby, rock me baby, all night long
She needs an answer to her confusion
Every picture tells a story … find more Awesome Album Cover stories here …
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