The Many Failed Cheese Covers

Recovered from the Bud Bungalow Recording Studio Design Book, circa 1976.

Like every great album, Cheese wasn't born overnight. It took dozens of sketches, countless arguments, and at least one suspicious amount of dairy.

Some early concepts were... ambitious.

One draft featured the cheese wheel twice as large. The band complained nobody could see them. The designer replied, "Exactly."

Another version had the woman carrying the lumberjack. It tested well until someone pointed out that nobody believed a 120-pound woman could casually haul a bearded Northern Ontario giant.

At one point they swapped outfits. The flannel looked surprisingly good on her. The shredded dress... less convincing on him. Although the drummer insisted it was "the future of stage wear."

One concept had them sitting politely on opposite sides of the cheese wheel. It looked less like an album cover and more like two people waiting for a dentist appointment.

A later sketch introduced a tiny mouse with a banjo. Nobody remembers why. The mouse stayed.

Another draft featured three wheels of cheese. Focus groups kept asking whether the album came with crackers.

One particularly dramatic version replaced the cheese with a giant tree stump. The producer crossed it out and scribbled in the margin:

"If the album is called Cheese, maybe there should be some cheese."

Good note.

Eventually the designer returned to the simplest composition: one oversized wheel, one rugged lumberjack, one mysterious woman who clearly wasn't telling the whole story, and just enough absurdity that people would stop and ask:

"What on earth am I looking at?"

The answer, of course, was exactly what Bud Bungalow Records had been aiming for all along.