Label Variations Part Nine – Plastic Ono Band “Cold Turkey”

In Label Variations Part Eight an unusual New Zealand Parlophone label version of John Lennon’s “Imagine” was featured.

I’ve stumbled across another from NZ –  this time Lennon’s anguished drug withdrawal song “Cold Turkey“, performed by the Plastic Ono Band. It’s definitely original and as you can see pretty beat up, but interesting I guess – especially for one particular reason which will be revealed later:

Plastic Ono Band Cover 1

It is in it’s original New Zealand Parlophone bag – very faded, but the rear side is interesting with it’s groovy “Young Internationals” advertisement for Air New Zealand (only $397.50 one-way to Singapore or Hong Kong!):

Plastic Ono Band Cover 2

The main point of interest though is the black and yellow Parlophone label:

Plastic Ono Band Label 1

The printing on the A-side is kind of faded and difficult to read because the silver-coloured lettering does not stand out well on the black background. Like the UK edition, this 45 rpm single carries the catalogue number APPLES 1001, and as in other markets around the world the flip-side is the Yoko Ono song “Don’t Worry Kyoko (Mummy’s Only Looking for Her Hand in the Snow)”. However, this New Zealand pressing has a spelling mistake. It clearly says “Don’t Worry Kajoko”, and it has no sub-title printed on the label:

Plastic Ono Band Label 2

Some people quite like collecting label printing mistakes and so this makes it interesting as well. The spelling should be “Don’t Worry Kyoko….”:

cold-turkey-Don't Worry Kyoko

Here are some other label variations from around the world, starting with Australia:

cold-turkey-Aust

These images following aren’t from my collection but gleaned from the web. Here are two different variations from Brazil:

cold-turkey-Brazilcold-turkey-brazil2a

The original UK version looked like this:

cold-turkey-UK

And the US and Canadian versions:

cold-turkey-USAcold-turkey-canada

Here’s one variation from Germany, followed by one from the Netherlands:

cold-turkey-german

cold-turkey-netherlands

And since posting this I’ve been contacted by Claude Defer in France with two French variations. He says: “In France, we have 2 types of labels : the first one has «Cold Turkey» on the white part of the apple and the second one has «Cold Turkey» on the green part of the apple. The first one was probably a misprint and the second one fixed it.”:

Cold-turkey-france 1Cold-turkey-france 2

Also, Andrey in Russia sent another France variation which is very similar to the one above, just a greener Apple:

ColdTurkeyFranceMonoSide1

If you have any other label variations you would like to share please email me.

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