Mick Jagger told Andy Warhol to do ‘whatever you want’ for The Rolling Stones’ album cover

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Andy Warhol was so trusted by The Rolling Stones‘ frontman that he was given instructions to do “whatever” he wanted.

Mick Jagger wrote the legendary artist a letter ahead of the band’s Sticky Fingers release, with a box of material as well as the record. For it, Warhol would print a now legendary cover, the front of a pair of jeans. While many may believe it is Jagger’s jeans, it turned out to be a so-called protégé of Warhol’s. The artist behind The Velvet Underground and Nico cover was in high demand at the turn of the 1970s, but it was The Rolling Stones who successfully landed themselves a deal with Warhol. The album cover would go on to receive a Grammy Award nomination for Best Album Cover, and it could be thanks to Jagger’s very loose outline of requests for the artwork that it received such acclaim.

In a letter written to Warhol, Jagger made it clear the artist had the freedom to do anything he wanted. He wrote: “I’m really pleased you can do the artwork for our new hits album. Here are two boxes of material which you can use, and the record.

“In my short, sweet experience, the more complicated the format of the album, e.g. more complex than just pages or fold-out, the more fucked-up the reproduction and agonising the delays. But, having said that, I leave it in your capable hands to do whatever you want… and please write back saying how much money you would like.

“Doubtless a Mr. Al Steckler will contact you in New York, with any further information. He will probably look nervous and say ‘Hurry up’ but take little notice.” The album cover has since gone down in history as one of The Rolling Stones’ most identifiable pieces of work.

Other album covers from the Wild Horses hitmakers, while not as defining of the era, do have little details people may have missed on first release. A hidden tribute made by The Rolling Stones to The Beatles can be found on one of their psychedelic album covers.

Photographer Michael Cooper tucked away the faces of McCartney, Lennon, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr. The faces can certainly be seen if you look closely enough at the album cover.

Cooper’s son, Adam, has since shared the reason his father hid the faces of The Beatles on the album cover. He said: “The British press were constantly dreaming up rumours that relations between the Beatles and the Stones were always bad, and they presented this bad-boy image of the Stones and the clean image of the Beatles and all of that.

“It was a complete invention by the press. People believed it, so the Stones, by 1967, said: ‘We’ve had enough of this shit. Let’s try to communicate through the cover to tell the public this is not the truth.'”