Swing to the Right by Utopia

Swing to the Right is the sixth studio album by Utopia. It followed the Beatles parody-homage Deface the Music. Swing to the Right moves into hard-edged commentary on corporate raiders, warmongers, political villains, and despicable music industry moguls. There is little in the way of progressive rock on this album, which is limited to its title track. Recorded in winter 1981 and set for release that June, Bearsville Records was reluctant to release the album because of the its overly political and religious tone. In protest Utopia took this material on the road for a full year begging audiences to petition Bearsville Records execs to release it, even going as far as giving out the phone number and address of Bearsville Records and instructing audiences to ask for Albert Grossman. The cover photo is a retouched and tinted reproduction of a well-known photograph taken at a public burning of Beatles records, which took place in August 1966 in the town of Waycross, Georgia, in response to John Lennon's controversial "more popular than Jesus" remark. The photograph, distributed by UPI and printed on front pages of newspapers including The Savannah Morning News, depicts the burning of the Beatles albums in Waycross in a large bonfire, while in the foreground a boy holds an LP which is about to be thrown into the fire. In the original image, the album the boy holds is a copy of The Beatles' Capitol Records debut LP Meet The Beatles, but on the Utopia cover this has been photographically replaced with an image of the Swing To The Right cover (thereby creating the illusion of an endless regression of the same image). The August 1966 event was promoted by WAYX radio in Waycross and was one of dozens that took place across the country in August 1966 in response to Lennon's remarks.