It’s regarded as one of the most iconic album sleeves of all time. The cover of Bob Dylan’s 1966 opus Blonde on Blonde, which featured a distinctive blurry headshot of the singer in a black and white scarf, captured the drug-fuelled 1960s zeitgeist with its hazy aesthetic and disregard for convention.
But according to the photographer, Jerry Schatzberg, the blurred image was a mistake caused by him shivering in the cold.
“It was pretty cold out,” Schatzberg told rock critic Bob Egan. “I know all the critics, everybody said, ‘Oh, they were trying to do a drug shot’. It’s not true. It was February, [Dylan] was wearing just that jacket, and I was wearing something similar, and the two of us were really cold.”
Schatzberg adds that Dylan was personally responsible for choosing the sleeve image, which he thinks was probably shot around New York’s downtown meat-packing district.
“To his credit, [Dylan]’s the one that chose that photograph,” he said, adding that the original setting would be “totally disguised” now due to gentrification. You can see the full interview below.
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