An even bigger question is what interest did any or all of The Beatles band members have in the apparently controversial story of King Lud and the founding of the city of London, and how do these things connect to this one-of-a-kind LP Album of the recordings of The Beatles Get Back/Let It Be Sessions and their last time performing together in the Rooftop Concert? Maybe Paul McCartney or Ringo Starr can help to answer these questions and reveal the origin of the Cover Art and the meaning of the remaining unidentified images within the drawing.

Anyone else care to weigh in?

Then the questions arose; who was King Lud and what is his story? I then did extensive research into the Legend of King Lud and found out what specific parts of the cover artwork were intended to illustrate though some elements of it still have no apparent explanation as to how they relate to King Lud, London, England in general, or The Beatles themselves. Once the story depicted by the overall artwork was discovered it became clear that the inscription on the label was in fact to indicate that it was Side 1 of LUD. This also corresponds to the engraving in the dead wax on the same side which is BM-1. The two odd symbols on the label which at first glance look like they may be number 8’s take on a more cryptic appearance on closer examination. They’re both made the same way which is by the intersection of 3 separate lines rather than by a single line as a number 8 is written. I’ve concluded simply by the unusual way they’re drawn that these symbols are definitely not number 8’s. What they are, I still haven’t been able to discover.

Then I showed it to a friend of mine in Colorado and pointed out specific things on both the label and the cover. She simply put two of those things together. I pointed out the profile of a king in the stone watchtower among other details and the lettering on the label which at the time could have been either ILUD or 1LUD. She took those two pieces, the “king” from the cover and the “LUD” from the label and without any prior knowledge of a King named Lud decided to type in “King Lud” for an internet search. That was when the cover art and the label inscription began to tell a coherent story. This launched me into a whole new direction of investigation into the origin of both the LP and the Cover Art and connected the two as much more than a random combination of pointless doodlings on an LP unrelated to the Cover Art. Now it was clear that the Record itself was directly connected intentionally to the Hand-Drawn Cover Artwork.

In the Summer of 2011 I resumed my investigation into the origins of this LP and began to look into any possible meaning or message in the hand-drawn cover art and who the artist(s) might have been. I looked to the artwork of John Lennon and Paul McCartney as they were the Beatles I knew had produced known bodies artwork over the years. I saw a general similarity between the styles of both John and Paul in the images on the album cover and continued searching. There seemed to be an overall message in it somehow but as of Fall 2011 I wasn’t getting any clues as to what if any sensible theme or meaning there could be in the apparently random subjects drawn on the cover. I also had no idea what the lettering and two odd shapes were on one side of the label.

Others I’ve consulted with believe that it may be a single cutting for a promo which is in fact what John Lennon introduces it as at the beginning of side one. Since then I’ve been investigating it when time permitted and have only recently discovered what the cover art is about and have come to the conclusion that the artwork itself is that of John Lennon with possible contributions on the Egyptian theme by Paul McCartney. George Harrison and Ringo Starr may also have had a hand in the artwork. The playlist is unlike anything else from the Get Back/Let It Be Sessions Nagra Tapes that I’ve been able to find thus far. It appears to be absolutely unique.

In the late 1990’s I played it once for a friend of mine who knows a lot about The Beatles which at the time I did not. He wrote down the playlist and told me he thought it sounded like it was from the Get Back/Let It Be Sessions which still meant nothing to me.

Not long after that, I was able to ask a recording company executive when he was in Aspen, CO about it and he literally nearly fell over when I described it to him. He explained that the tapes of those sessions called the “Nagra Tapes” were still missing (which they were at that time). He said not to play it anymore as it may be an acetate so I followed his advice and didn’t play it. Life took some interesting turns soon after that and the record got burried once again in my storage unit and I didn’t do anything more in the way of research until the summer of 2011. It was then that I resumed my research into the origin and pedigree of this vinyl snippet from the 1969 Beatles Get Back/Let It Be recording sessions and the rooftop concert. I learned through my own research that it definitely is not an acetate recording.

I received this LP in a stack of records someone was throwing away in September of 1989. It was obviously old by then and in the same condition it is in now. The person who was throwing them out asked me if I wanted them since he was just going to toss them into the dumpster otherwise, so I took them to add them to my collection. I shuffled through them right there and asked him what that one was and he had no idea what was on it and wasn’t even sure where or when he had acquired it and didn’t care. I wasn’t set up to play vinyl records at that time so it ended up being in my collection for at least 7 years without me knowing what was on it. After that time I got my old 70’s era turntable/stereo out of storage and began playing my long burried records (about 500 of them). When this one came up I played it and I was shocked.

Was this Cover Art intended to be used for the Let It Be / Get Back LP?

Post your ideas on our blog.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tLsEc5F3N8U

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lud_son_of_Heli