Gettin In Over My Head

Anyone who watched the Brits earlier this year would not have been able to ignore the colourful makeover the award statues had received.

The man responsible for that makeover was Sir Peter Blake, the Godfather of Pop Art. Known to many for creating the album sleeve for the Beatles album, Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band , Blake has created some 20 album sleeves for artists including Paul Weller, Eric Clapton and Ian Dury.

We are therefore understandably delighted to have worked with Peter to publish a series of limited edition screenprints. The first in the series that we are releasing and available only at Monograph is Gettin In Over My Head, selected by The Guardian in 2004 as one of the top 10 most beautiful album sleeves of all time.

What’s the link between Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band and Getting In Over My Head?

Peter Blake, Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band

“I was interviewed by someone, and it just became endless, endless questions about Sgt. Pepper’s,” Blake has said. “It became clear that was all this interviewer wanted to talk about. So after a long while he asked me ‘wasn’t it a thrill to be asked to do the artwork for Pepper‘? And I said, ‘Well, I would have rather done the artwork for Pet Sounds’ [the Beach Boys’ 1966 album]. It was just to throw him off, but I did mean it in a way. And not long after that Brian’s management called and asked if I was serious. Would I like to do an album cover for him?…It ended up being for Gettin In Over My Head and it was really great to work on. I found out that Elton [John] and Paul [McCartney] were involved and I wanted to include them in the artwork. I had Brian and Elton dancing together. But the record company wanted the cover to just be Brian.”

So there you have it. No Paul or Elton, but Brian, Brian…and Brian. The work is in Blake’s usual collage style. featuring a long, wide, typically American boulevard with images of Brian Wilson in the foreground, there are references to each of the songs on the album including Rainbow Eye’s, Desert Drive, Fairy Tale and City Blues. Wilson fans will be able to spot all the music references. Art lovers will just appreciate the work as a splendid example of Blake’s oeuvre. Which one are you? Music fan, art lover or both?