Overview
Abbey Road arrived as the first Australian album by The Beatles issued exclusively in stereo. Its earliest packaging, however, supplied a more conspicuous distinction: a printing error that became known among collectors as the “blood cover”.
Too much red ink gave the entire sleeve, front and rear, a pink cast. On the road between Ringo and John, it created a prominent mark that could be interpreted as a bloodstain. The anomaly became one of the cited “clues” in the “Paul is Dead” conspiracy, although its origin was a printing fault corrected soon afterwards.
The same effect appears on Australian sheet music for ‘Come Together’ and ‘Maxwell’s Silver Hammer’, illustrated below. Other sleeve details changed more gradually. The drainage grate at the bottom of the photograph is prominent on the earliest covers, becomes less visible on later examples and disappears from the image during the 1970s. All Australian-manufactured sleeves have the rear Apple logo misaligned relative to the text.
