The Mamas and the Papas – Can You Believe Your Eyes and Ears Session

“I think it was Cass who pulled out the grass from tinfoil and lit it with all the windows and doors closed. We all got really stoned. I couldn’t even get my lens cap off. I said, ‘We gotta shoot something.’ The apartment had a 1920s-era bathroom with all of this funky tile. I put them in the bathtub, set up my tripod and my big two-and-a-quarter camera, and shot the cover for If You Can Believe Your Eyes and Ears with my wide-angle lens. There was a toilet in the corner and I left it in. That was a big mistake. You can’t put a toilet on the cover of anything and sell it at Sears or one of those chain stores. They will not allow it. So Lou [Adler] came up with the great idea to put a little sticker on the shrink-wrap that read ‘including ‘California Dreaming’. And the covered the toilet. It became one of the most controversial album covers of its day, which pleased us to no end. I became famous overnight. The Mamas and the Papas blew up, and I guess I blew up with them.”

From Big Shots: The Photography of Guy Webster; Text by Harvey Kubernik and Kenneth Kubernik