Why the Rolling Stones' 'Beggars Banquet' originally had a graffiti-covered toilet on the cover

The original sleeve for Beggars Banquet was a photograph of a scrawled-over, grimy toilet in a stark white bathroom—shot by art director Tom Wilkes and photographer Barry Feinstein. The idea was to contrast the elegant white tiles with the chaotic, unwashed reality underneath the band’s polished image. But Decca Records, the Stones’ label, panicked: they thought it was “bad taste” and would offend retailers and radio stations.

The band dug in. Mick Jagger insisted the toilet was a statement about society and the band’s refusal to clean up for anybody. Decca refused to release the album unless the cover changed. After months of back-and-forth, the Stones relented and the album shipped with a plain black-and-white cover designed as a mock formal invitation—reading “The Rolling Stones Beggars Banquet” in embossed lettering. That invitation cover became iconic, but the toilet outtake has lived on in bootlegs and reissues as a symbol of the band’s middle-finger attitude.