"What the F**k? Upon seeing this cover, all of a sudden our eloquence escaped us somewhat. An immense tongue, buttocks, cheerful colours, but seemingly all out of proportion.I was visiting a high school friend. He is now the resident poet of Nijkerk, a town in the eastern part of Holland. We were philosophizing about music and language. Even after more than forty years, we still get along well. We share the same interests: a little writing, some listening to music, doing odd jobs around the house. A few years ago I had taken over his entire LP collection. I asked him if he had any regrets. That was easy. He only missed the one cover by British band Gentle Giant. Which one? Well, that one. That meant googling on the iPad and there the cover of "Acquiring the Taste" appeared. That wasn't the cover he meant, but that didn't make our surprise any less. What's happening here? You don't expect a dirty mind from a resident poet, but the comparison with a tongue licking buttocks was easily made. But if you open up the cover, it all becomes much clearer. The mouth with the tongue hanging out is about to bite into a peach. How lame and banal do you want it to be? The cover is therefore considered one of the worst LP designs ever. Nevertheless, the LP is a collector's item with typical Gentle Giant music. For the original version from England, you could easily pay € 200 on the internet. We philosophized a little more and soon stumbled upon the renowned Tongue logo of the Rolling Stones, designed by the English artist John Pasche. That tongue has been called the most famous logo in popular music history and can be found on all of the Stones' albums and singles after 1970. So the Stones were sooner tongue-tied than Gentle Giant. That only makes the story about this cover worse. Couldn't they have come up with something better? Or did they use the tongue to send a message (which didn't get through)? Something like: our music is just as versatile and sensitive as the tongue. That mobile piece of muscle in your mouth is a biological phenomenon. The taste buds immediately recognize whether you are dealing with something sweet, sour, bitter or salty when you put something in your mouth. The idea of a sweet peach will make you drool from the mouth, ready to bite and grind up a piece of it. Do not swallow too quickly, so that you can enjoy the sweet taste for a while. Our conversation eventually ended up in the delicate field of erotica. About how Jimi Hendrix played the strings of his guitar with his tongue. And how I French-kissed for the first time, with a girl named Carry. I had mended her bicycle tire during an early morning spring walk on Ascension Day and as a reward I was allowed to kiss her. It confused me, as did the music from Gentle Giant's album "In a Glass House" which I bought a short while later. Gentle Giant and tongues, apparently they belong together. It was time for some fresh air. We went for a city walk. My old friend showed me some places where his poems were attached to the wall. "Look, you have your records with details and such, I am, for example, inspired by the rooster on a church steeple". And he started reciting some phrases like every rooster has a golden feather. And that, if things are against you for a while, you have to hold your head up against the wind. For a while we continued to talk about language and music. The tongue and Gentle Giant faded into the background. But when I drove back, I decided to purchase "Acquiring the Taste". Because no matter how banal, it should not be missing from my collection. Gerrit-Jan Vrielink Thanks to Bert Jurling for the initial idea.