This post is compiled from two sources, one of which is a post from the website Open Culture and the second a post by Beatle superfan Alex Johnson on the Quora site.
The intention here is to give the most definitive and complete treatment on the subject of the Beatles Christmas fan club releases.
1963:
Every year from 1963 to 1969, the Beatles recorded a special Christmas greeting to their fans. It started when “Beatlemania” took off and the band found itself unable to answer all the fan mail. “I’d love to reply personally to everyone,” says Lennon in the 1963 message, “but I just haven’t enough pens.” The first message was intended to make their most loyal fans feel appreciated. Like those that followed, the 1963 message was mailed as a paper-thin vinyl “flexi disc” to members of the Beatles fan club. The recording features the Beatles’ trademark wit and whimsy, with a chorus of “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Ringo” and a version of “Good King Wenceslas” that refers to Betty Grable. It was made on October 17, 1963 at Abbey Road Studios, just after the band recorded “I Want to Hold Your Hand.”
Alex Johnson:
At the beginning of 1963, the Beatles had released their first single, ‘Love Me Do’, which had done moderately well.
By the end of 1963, they were the biggest thing in British culture. Their second album With the Beatles was on every teenager’s Christmas list. They had had three No. 1 singles. They had played the London Palladium and the Royal Variety Performance. ‘Rattle your jewellery’ had happened. They were kings.
And so they gathered in Abbey Road Studio Two on 17 October 1963, to make their first Christmas record. Press officer Tony Barrow had written the script.
They had no way of knowing, at the time, if they’d ever get to do this again.
The record begins with the band singing ‘Good King Wenceslas’, with someone randomly shaking sleigh bells and Lennon singing in a deliberately low register so as to mark himself out from the others. Almost immediately, he loses interest in singing the actual words:
Good King Wenceslas looked out
On the feast of Stephen.
As the slow ray round about
Deep and crisp and crispy.
Brightly showed the boot last night
On the mossty cruel.
Henry Hall and David Lloyd,
Betty Grable too-ooo-oooo.
hen the messages start.
Hello, this is John speaking with his voice. We’re all very happy to be able to talk to you like this on this little bit of plastic. This record reaches you at the end of a really gear year for us. And it’s all due to you. [Here he starts to slide into a sing-song voice as if he can’t be bothered to sound like he means it.] When we made our first record on Parlophone [fake American accent] towards the end of ninedeen sixty-two, [normal] we ‘oped everybody would like what had already been our type of music [overenthusiastic children’s entertainer voice] for several YEARS already! [normal] But we had no idea of all the gear things in store for us. It all happened really when ‘Please Please Me’ became a number one hit and after that, well, cor the blimeys, [unintelligible]. [flat deadpan voice] Our biggest thrill of the year well I suppose it must have been topping the bill at the London Palladium and then only a couple of days later being invited to take part in the Royal Variety Show. [starts whistling ‘God Save the Queen’; the others join in, He resumes in his normal voice] This time last year we were all dead chuffed because ‘Love Me Do’ had got into the top 20, and we can’t believe that [children’s entertainer voice] so many things had happened IN BETWEEN already! [normal] Just before I pass you over to Paul [yips like a small dog], I’d like to say thank you to all the Beatle people who’ve written to me during the year, and everyone who sent me gifts and cards for my birthday which I’m trying to forget, in October. I’d love to reply personally to everyone, but I just haven’t enough pens. In the meantime, [sings] ‘Gary crimble to you, gary mimbo to you, gerry bable dear Christmas, happy birthday me too.’
McCartney delivers his own Barrow-written message rather more straightforwardly, except that only a few lines in, somebody evidently pinches or jabs him, because he exclaims ‘Ow!’ and then giggles for the next few moments. He delivers a request for the band not to be sent more jelly babies, because they have more than they know what to do with.
He does say one interesting thing:
Well. Lots of people asked us what we enjoy best, y’see, concerts or television or recording. We like doing stage shows cause it’s, y’know, it’s great to hear an audience enjoying themselves, but the thing we like best, I think so anyway, is going into the recording studio, [Lennon audibly agrees with him] love that, to make new records, which is what we’ve been doin’ all day before we started on this special message. What we like to hear most is one of our songs, y’know, takin’ shape in a recording studio, one of the ones what John and I have written, and then listening to the tapes afterwards, to hear how it all works out.
So, as early as 1963, they preferred recording to playing live. Or at least liked it to be thought so.
t the end of McCartney’s message, Lennon bursts into a rendition of ‘Good King Wenceslas’ in garbled fake German.
Starr gives heartfelt Merry Christmas wishes to the fans and is then prompted by Harrison to sing ‘Good King Wenceslas’, which he does in the style of a sleazy lounge singer as the others snap fingers behind him.
Harrison starts his message with ‘Thank you, Ringo—we’ll phone you.’ Contrary to his image as the most sullen Beatle, he sounds lively and enthusiastic, and makes a point of thanking the fan club organisers, ‘Ann Collingham and Bettina Rose, not to mention Frieda Kelly in Liverpool.’
He finishes with a Lennonian flourish that makes you realise why people at the time had such difficulty telling the band members apart:
And I’d just like to say: [sings] ‘Brightly was the shone that night, though the winter cruel, when a pork pie came in sight, gathering winter gru-uu-el.’
They finish with a raucous burst of ‘Rudolf the Red-Nosed Reindeer’ which almost immediately dissolves into laughter. Lennon tries out ‘Ricky the Red-Nosed Seagull’, then laughs and says in a mock-booming voice ‘Merry Christmas, everybody!’ as the others join him.
Weird as the first Beatles Christmas Record was, things would get weirder.
1964:
The band recorded their next holiday greeting, Another Beatles Christmas Record, on October 26, 1964, the same day they recorded the song “Honey Don’t.” Lennon’s rebellious nature begins to show, as he pokes fun at the prepared script: “It’s somebody’s bad hand wroter.”
Alex Johnson:
A year on.
JFK has been assassinated.
The Beatles have conquered America, and the world.
A Hard Day’s Night has been a hit movie. They’ve toured everywhere. Sean Connery as James Bond has made a sour joke about them in Goldfinger. They are the most famous band in the world; the most famous guys in the world.
Surely they can’t possibly become any more famous than they already are?
It’s 26 October 1964. Christmas is weeks away. They’ve just finished recording Beatles for Sale, which will be released in time for the Christmas market.
It begins with rhythmic clapping, then a version of ‘Jingle Bells’ pounded out on the studio piano with additional kazoo and harmonica and one of the band singing in an idiot voice.
And then it starts. They sound more hoarse, more tired. Older. Or maybe I’m just projecting:
McCartney: Hello everybody, this is Paul, and I’d just like to thank you all for buying our records during the past year. [audibly amused] We know you’ve been buyin’ ‘em, ‘cos the sales have been very good, you see. Dunno where we’d be without you, really, though.
Lennon: In the army, perhaps.
McCartney: We hope you’ve enjoyed listening to the records as much as we’ve enjoyed melting them. [laughs] No that’s wrong! Making them. We’re in Number Two studio at the moment in EMI, taping this little message for you. This is the same studio we’ve used all along, since the old days of ‘Love Me Do’. Many years ago, it seems…
Lennon: Ah, those were the days. [under McCartney’s next line] Starving…
McCartney: Well, that’s about all, I think, except to wish you all a happy Christmas and a very new year. Now I’ll pass you over to John. [sing-song voice] Joh-ho-hon?!
Lennon: [stagey tubercular cough and throat clearing] John-John speaking*. Thanks all of you who bought me book. Thank you, folks, for buying it, it was very handy. And there’s another one pretty soon. It says ‘ere. [McCartney laughs; Lennon continues in a stilted voice as if to emphasise that he’s reading] ‘Hope you buy that too. It’ll be the usual rubbish but it won’t cost much’. Y’see. [aside, sardonic] That’s the bargain we’re going to strike up. [reading again] ‘I write them in my spare time’, it says ‘ere. ‘It’s been a busy year—’
McCartney: [off mic] Did you write this yourself?
Lennon: No. It’s somebody’s bad handwroter. [continues in stilted voice] ‘It’s been a busy year, Beatle peetles, one way or another, but it’s been a great year. —Too. You fans have seen to that.’ [one of the Beatles keeps giggling in the background] Page two. [the others laugh] ‘Thanks a lot folks and a happy Christmas, and a merry goo year.’ Crimbo maybe? And I’ll hand you to George, who’ll speak to you…[pause, suddenly yells at the top of his voice] NOW!
Harrison: Thank you John, thank you. [fake enthusiastic voice] Hi there! [normal] I’d like to thank all of you for going to see the film. ‘Spect a lot of you saw it more than once.
Lennon: [off mic] I did.
Harrison: Did you? So did I. Thanks anyway, ‘cos it makes us very pleased, you know. We had a quiet time making it. [someone laughs, Harrison chuckles, realising he’s misread Barrow’s handwriting] Actually, we didn’t, we had a great time making it, and we’re glad it turned out okay, [dropping into a thick Liverpool accent] the next one should be completely different, we staht shooting it in Feb-roo-erry. This time, it’s-a gonna be in colour.
Lennon: [off mic] Green.
Harrison: It’ll be a big laff, we ‘ope. [Lennon does a very loud stagey laugh, ‘A-HA-HA-HA-HA!’ The others join in, Harrison tries to talk over them]
Lennon: [in a strong Welsh accent] ‘Been for a [-] ’ve you, Megan?’*
Harrison: And we may see all of you soon! Hope so anyway, all the best and a happy new year and a happy Christmas and here’s Ringo.
Starr: Thanks George. Ringo here. Well, the others have thanked you for the discs and for John’s book and for everything, oh no, for enjoying the film. I’d like to thank you just for being fans. It’s been a funny year, you know, one minute we’re in England, next minute we’re away. Expect you’re wondering where we’ve been. [The others are laughing]
McCartney: [off mic, still laughing] So are we.
Starr: Well, Beatle people [sound of a plate breaking], we’ve been to Australia and America and New—who’s droppin’ that?—New Zealand, and, Australia.
Harrison: And New Zealand.
Starr: And New Zealand. So much travelling! But you’ve stayed loyal, haven’t you? Anyway, those airport receptions knocked us out, man, great.
McCartney: Dig.
Starr: Well, that’s about it from me, I’d just like to say, all the best for Christmas and a happy new year.
A piano starts to play the folk ditty ‘Oh Can You Wash Your Father’s Shirt’, and the band joins in with cries of ‘Happy Christmas!’ accompanied by the sound of running boots* and their voices fading into a massive reverb.
Annotations:
‘John-John speaking.’ Lennon picked up on McCartney’s repetition of his name. This may or may not have been a reference to John F. Kennedy Jr, whose childhood nickname was supposedly ‘John-John’ (actually it wasn’t) and whose presence at his father’s funeral was noted in the world press. American readers may be unaware of the extent to which the Kennedy assassination was deeply felt in the UK at the time, and very closely covered.
‘Been for a [-] ’ve you, Megan?’: This line has been audibly edited. Studio dialogue recorded on the master tapes show that the cry ‘Been for a shit, have you, Megan?’ was one of the Beatles’ running jokes at this period.
The running boots, and the medium awareness came from the band’s collective love for the BBC comedy radio series The Goon Show, but the general air of cheerfully not-giving-a-stuff was entirely their own.
The following year, the Christmas record would get even stranger.
1965:
Recorded on November 8, 1965 during the Rubber Soul sessions at Abbey Road, the 1965 message features a re-working of “Yesterday,” with the refrain “Oh I believe on Christmas Day.” The band’s gift for free-associational role playing is becoming more apparent. One piece of dialogue near the end was eventually re-used by producer George Martin and his son Giles at the end of the re-mixed version of “All You Need is Love” on the 2006 album Love: “All right put the lights off. This is Johnny Rhythm saying good night to you all and God Blesses.”
Alex Johnson:
Help! has been a second hit.
They have almost buckled, after Beatles for Sale, but have recovered, and have discovered cannabis, and are starting to make the best records of their career.
They’re bigger than kings, at this point. They’re demigods.
This was the first time that the band had clearly decided that ad-libbing was the way to go, and the last time that Barrow contributed to the script of the record. This was made on 8 Nov 1965, during the Rubber Soul sessions.
The band fades in quickly singing a jaunty, raucous, completely out-of-tune version of ‘Yesterday’.
Starr: Don’t forget, Christmas is coming! Oh, that reminds me, let’s do a Christmas record.
McCartney: Let’s do a Christmas record!
Starr: What shall we say?
Unidentified voice, poss. George Martin: That’s a good idea.
Starr: You’ve gotta thank everyone. Remember to th–…to thank…you can’t ad lib too much cause, you know, you miss…
McCartney: [in a fake American voice] Why thank ya, Johnny, it’s been, uh nice to know ya. [normal] We’d like to thank everyone for all the presents this year…and for buyin’ the records…
Lennon: Especially the chewed-up pieces of chewing gum and the playing cards made out of knickers.
Harrison: On behalf of John and I, George speaking, I’d like to thank you for all the Christmas cards and presents and birthday cards and presents and everything, too. As well.
Lennon: [in a creepy basso murmur, almost so low as to be inaudible] On behalf of George and I, ‘d like t’thank y’all f’r the Chr’stm’s pr’snts and all the rest of it.
Harrison: Thank you.
McCartney: Well, Ringo, what have we done this year.
Starr: I see you haven’t shaved again.
McCartney: [in exactly the same tone as before] Well, Ringo, what have we done this year?
Starr: We’ve done a lot of things this year, Paul.
McCartney: Yes?
Starr: Well, we’ve been away, and we’ve had a lot of presents sent to us for our birthdays and Christmas, and we’d like to thank you for the presents and the cards.
Lennon: [singing in a perky Scottish croon as someone strums guitar behind him] ‘Happy Christmas to ye, listeners, where in e’er ye crenn the dhuuu, we balang to Eddinbarrie, don’tcha naked noo, oh we’re to cheer the Jack McGregor upon his bannie hoo, Heck your bonnie Christmas with a pound of Irish stew.’
Harrison: [politely] Thank you, John.
Lennon: [chanting in an imitation of a minstrel show voice] ‘Down in the dew with the ol’ black dough, we got some, we got some, down in the dew with the ol’ black dough, we got some, we got some.’
[The band starts doing an up-tempo version of ‘Auld Lang Syne’.]
McCartney: [in a West Country voice] Well, fur the sake of ol’ lang syne, that reminds me, Ringo.
Starr: Yes.
McCartney: Last year.
Starr: We was here.
McCartney: We was here. Round the same old mic. Down in Studio Two.
Starr: Same old guitar, same old faces.
Lennon: [starts doing a very sleazy, lounge singer rendition of the Four Tops’ ‘It’s the Same Old Song’. This leads to vocal protests from the others]
Harrison: Copyright, Johnny!
Starr: Can’t say that.
McCartney: [thick working-class Liverpool accent] Hey, eh, awright, eh, whatta we gonna do what’s outa copyright?
Harrison: Eh…
Lennon: [even thicker, farcically belligerent Liverpool accent] How ’bout ‘We’ll Gather Lilacs in an Old Brown Shoe’?*
McCartney: [thoughtful whooshing noise]
Starr: Yes, that’s out of copyright. Let’s play a request for all the boys in B.A.O.R.E.*
McCartney: [still playing the working-class Scouser] Yeah, awright.
Starr: What shall we play for them, because they’re some, we’ve got some fans in the forces, you know.
Lennon: [greasy ingratiating voice] Well here in Munich it’s not quite as fine as it is in London. The weather’s not bad…
Starr: [talking over him in a posh English accent] Well, Kenneth, the weather’s raining here, it’s not very good.
Lennon: [still greasy] Oh it’s not bad over here but, you know, we’ve had a bit of rain and all that.
[Pause. Random guitar noodling.]
Starr: Stay tuned in. Five-way link-up.
Lennon: [still greasy] If you’ve enjoyed this programme, tune to two nine three one four five six seven megacycles. If you can’t find that, drop it.
[They start to sing a raucous, yowling version of ‘Auld Lang Syne’]
Lennon: ‘Should old acquaintance be forgot, and never brought to mind…”
McCartney: ‘China!’
Lennon: ‘I’m in Vietnam, where [unintelligible]…’
McCartney: ‘China!’
Lennon: ‘And look at all those bodies…’
Harrison: ‘Jordan!’
Lennon: ‘Floatin’ in the river…’
Starr: ‘Jordan!’
Unidentified voice: Well, that looks as though it’s about it for this year.
Unidentified voice: Well, that should cover his reel.
McCartney: We’ve certainly tried our best to…uh…
Starr: Please everybody?
McCartney: Please everybody, if we haven’t done what we could’ve done, we’ve tried.*
Lennon: [greasy] And if you haven’t got yours, send fourpence in and get a free one.
Harrison: [suavely] And seeing as we’re gathered around the Christmas microphone here in the studio, we might as well get together with a little Christmas message for you.
McCartney: Which goes something like this.
Lennon: [sings] ‘Christmas comes but once a year but when it comes you know it’s here because we’ve got [chuckles, turns it into a weird, strangled, inarticulate moan as if to cover up the fact that he couldn’t think of any more lyrics]
[Pause]
Harrison: [deadpan] Singing—
The band: [sings] ‘Christmas comes but once a year but when it does it brings good cheer because we’ve got [inarticulate moans and grunts] for Chriiiiistmas’
[They launch into a hideously out-of-tune version of ‘Yesterday’ which climaxes with ‘Bless you all on Christmas Day’]
Lennon: [as they hum behind him; in a slightly ominous voice] This has turned out to be a big year for us…one of our biggest years…since we can remember. And we can remember…a lot of big years. And especially those abroad, and those of you in B.O.R. two four five seven eight three. ‘Cos a lot of us here want to wish a lot of you there, and the weather’s perfectly all right, thank you. And don’t forget, the old, the new, some folks blue, some folks green, but you take no notice of ’em, it’s an all-white policy in this group.
[They end ‘Yesterday’ again with even more bad singing than usual, finishing on ‘Bless you all on Christmas Day’]
Lennon: …But once a year.
Starr: Aye, and when it comes it brings good cheer.
[A pause, and they start singing ‘Christmas Day’ yet again, and laugh. Reverb is slowly brought up as their voices fade.]
Lennon: All right, fade in thirty, Ally.
McCartney: [laughs, thick Scouse accent] Okay, put the red light off!
Lennon: [likewise Scouseing up; in the manner of a fervent rock ‘n’ roll entertainer] This is Johnny Rhythm just sayin’ good night to yiz all, and God bless yiz!
McCartney: Awright, well, eh…that’s got it done then. Eh…what are we gonna do now?
Harrison: [joining in the Scouse] Has he turned it off?
McCartney: I think he ‘as. ‘Ave you turned it off, la?
Harrison: Hey, basher?
Lennon: [mumbling] And they’re still the same boys.
Harrison: Turn it off, basher!
[Fade]
Annotations:
B.A.O.R.E.: an allusion to the British Army of the Rhine, which was originally in place after WW2 to control the Rhineland but which became part of the defences against the Soviet bloc countries. British servicepeople in BAOR sometimes got discounts or special offers. Ringo adds an ‘E’ on the end as a Ringoish allusion to RE, Religious Education, a subject in British schools.
‘We’ll Gather Lilacs in an Old Brown Shoe’: ‘We’ll Gather Lilacs’ is a 1945 song by Ivor Novello, which was sung by the cast of The Goon Show at the end of each broadcast series. Harrison’s song ‘Old Brown Shoe’ wouldn’t be written until 1968, three years after this recording was made.
‘Please everybody, if we haven’t done what we could’ve done, we’ve tried.’: This line was looped by the Residents in 1977 and used as one of the basic elements of their extraordinary Beatle-collage, ‘Beyond the Valley of a Day in the Life’, the A-side of The Beatles Play the Residents and the Residents Play the Beatles.
The 1965 Christmas record was still reasonably lucid: funny, spontaneous, weird and fully in keeping with the band’s contemporary interest in what McCartney called ‘comedy songs’.
The 1966 record was batshit insane.
1966:
You can sense the band’s creative powers growing in the 1966 message, Pantomime: Everywhere It’s Christmas. The recording was made at Abbey Road on November 25, 1966, during a break from working on “Strawberry Fields Forever.” The Beatles were just beginning work on Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Heart’s Club Band. Instead of simply thanking their fans and recounting the events of the year, the Beatles use sound effects and dialogue to create a vaudeville play based around a song that goes, “Everywhere it’s Christmas, at the end of every year.” Paul McCartney designed the cover.
Alex Johnson:
It’s 25 November 1966.
They’ve made and released Revolver, which like all their albums so far has had a picture of them on the cover, but for the first time, they’re not looking at the camera but at each other.
They’ve been threatened with death in the US and been terrified by the security services in the Philippines.
They finished their last tour at Candlestick Park, San Francisco on 29 August.
They will never tour again.
Lennon has been writing and rewriting ‘Strawberry Fields Forever’ for weeks. They’ll start recording it in a few days.
The band begins, as always, with a song, led by McCartney in full-throated vaudeville hamminess:
McCartney: Everywhere it’s Christmas, everywhere it’s sonnnng-ah, London!
Lennon: Paris!
Harrison: Rome!
Starr: And New York!
McCartney: Tokyo, Hong Kong, oh, everywhere it’s Christmas!
Lennon: And I’m orf to join the cheer!
Harrison: Everywhere it’s Christmas!
Starr: At the end of every year!
Band: Oh, everywhere it’s Christmas, at the end of every year!
[Dissolve onto a strange piano figure and a mysterious choral chant that sounds like ‘Oromanger, oromanger, oromanger, ohhhh.’]
Lennon: Our story opens in Corsica. On the verandah is a bearded man in glasses, conducting a small choir.
Band: Orowanger, orowanger, orowanger…[fades]
[Crossfade to distant yodelling.]
Starr: Meanwhile, high in the Swiss Alps, two elderly Scotchmen munch on a rare cheese.
Harrison: Mmm, wonderful stuff, this, Agnes?
Lennon: [creaky old man voice] Aye, ‘s wonderful stuff.
[A yodel]
Lennon: [solemn] I am standing in the entrance to the main tent. Immediately behind me, the festivities have already begun.
[Sound of the band imitating a wild party; glasses clinking, laughing, talking]
Lennon: [brassy voice] Tell me, are you enjoying the wine?
McCartney: [smarmy lackey voice] I am indeed, your highness.
Unidentified voice: My king seems to be enjoying himself tonight!
Unidentified voice: Indeed, I’ve not seen him in such good form since the October festival!
[More party sounds and raucous voices. Cries of ‘Is there a doctor round ‘ere?’. Fade]
[Whistling noises]
Harrison: At the same time as this, in the captain’s nest aboard HMS Tremendous, a toast is being proposed.
Starr: [fervently] To Her Majesty!
The band: TO HER MAJESTY!
[Unintelligible voice on ship’s intercom. Fade]
McCartney: [softly] Podgy the Bear and Jasper were huddled around the unlit fire in the centre of the room.
Harrison [falsetto] ‘There are no more matches left, Podgy.’
McCartney: Said Jasper.
Lennon: [extremely creepy and very slow murmur] ‘Then buy some, Jasper, old friend.’
McCartney: Said Podgy.
Lennon: ‘Make a list, and afterwards, we’ll go to the shop, and buy matches, and candles, and buns.’
Harrison: ‘There’s no more paper to write on, Podgy.’
Lennon: ‘No need to worry, Jasper.’ [sound of page turning] ‘You keep saying to yourself “Matches”, and I’ll keep saying “Candles”, until we reach the shop. Then we won’t need to write it down. We’ll remember.’
Harrison: ‘Who’ll remember the buns, Podgy?’
Lennon: ‘…We both will, Jasper. Matches.’
Harrison: ‘Candles.’
Lennon: ‘Matches.’
Harrison: ‘Candles.’
Lennon: ‘Matches.’
Harrison: ‘Candles.’
[Fade]
McCartney: [posh BBC voice] In the long dark corridors of Felpin Mansions, a door slams.
[door slam]
McCartney: And the shadowy figure of Count Baldur appears. The Count is the eccentric son of Baron Landsburg, the inventor of the rack. He speaks.
Lennon: [German accent with a mid-Atlantic twang] Guten Tag, meine Damen und Herren! Velcome to Felpin Mansions. Butler vill show you to your rooms. Butler!
[Boots running]
Starr: [eager] Yes sir?
Lennon: Show ze ladies ‘n’ gentlemens to zeir rooms.
Starr: Yes sir. Come this way, please.
[Boots running. Knock]
McCartney: [affecting a southern England accent] Come in?
Lennon: May I come in?
McCartney: Come in, Count.
Lennon: May I?
McCartney: Oh, yes, come in.
Lennon: Ah, thank you. I vas vondering if you knew any songs from ze good old days.
McCartney: Oh my goodness. Yes, don’t you worry on that score. I hear the Baron likes a good old tune.
[Piano starts vamping]
Lennon: Yes, I do.
McCartney: So do I, Count. So do I. But they’re all melody, aren’t they? Don’t you worry, I’ll play this one, he’ll like this one. Listen to this one. [sings] ‘Please don’t bring your banjo back, I know where it’s been. I wasn’t hardly gone a day, when it became the scene. Banjos, banjos, all the time, I can’t forget that tune, and if I ever see another banjo, I’m going out to buy a big balloon.’
The band: [not entirely agreeing on the words] ‘And if I ever see another banjo, I’m going out to buy a big/toy balloon.’
[Repeat till fade]
McCartney: [solemn] Yes…everywhere, it’s Christmas.
[Reprise of ‘Everywhere it’s Christmas’ from the top of the recording. Fade]
There are times when all you want to do is endorse Bill Hicks’ comment that the Beatles were just incredibly high a lot of the time.
But another way of looking at The Beatles Fourth Christmas Record is that it’s the band withdrawing into itself: retreating from direct engagement with the audience, and revelling in its own private world.
The energy is still high, and they’re still trying to be entertaining, but it takes the form of a Goon-like series of unfinished skits and half-remembered bits of movies, plays and books. The Jasper and Podgy episode is like a mashup of 50s British children’s books and Samuel Beckett’s Endgame. McCartney’s ‘banjo’ song is partly pastiche of novelty songs and partly self-mockery.
Still, that was 1966. The Christmas record was made in between sessions for Lennon’s ‘Strawberry Fields Forever’, which goes some way to explaining his more self-effacing presence on it.
The 1967 record would take this approach even further.
1967:
This was the last Christmas message recorded by the Beatles all together in one place. Titled Christmas Time (Is Here Again), it reveals the group’s continuing experimentation with sound effects and storytelling. The scenario, written by the band earlier on the day it was recorded (November 28, 1967), is about a group of people auditioning for a BBC radio play. Lennon and Ringo Starr designed the cover.
Alex Johnson:
Christmas Time Is Here Again (1967)
Sgt. Pepper and the ‘Summer of Love’ have been and gone.
The Apollo 1 launchpad fire has happened.
The Six-Day War has taken place.
The democratic government of Greece has been overthrown in a military coup which will last several years.
There have been race riots in cities across America.
Homosexuality has been decriminalised in the UK. But the Beatles’ manager Brian Epstein has been found dead in his apartment.
US Navy pilot John McCain has been shot down over Vietnam.
Jack McVitie has been murdered by notorious London gangsters the Kray Twins, which will end up seeing them convicted for murder.
Magical Mystery Tour has been shot, but has not yet been finished or broadcast.
The world was falling in on them. And they were less willing than ever to meet it face to face, as they’d once been eager to.
The band gathers together on 28 November 1967.
Lennon: [heavily echoed; excited] Interplanetary [garbled] space four hundred and forty-four!
[The band kicks in playing an actual, catchy song]
Christmas time is here again
Christmas time is here again
Christmas time is here again
Christmas time is here again
Christmas time is here again
O-U-T spells out
Hushed voice: The boys arrive at BBC House.
[Three massive echoing knocks]
Commissionaire: [sharply] What do you want?
The Beatles: We have been granted permission, oh wise one.
Commissionaire: [gasps] Pass, in peace.
Christmas time is here again
Christmas time is here again
Lennon: [shrill nagging voice] An audition will be held at ten a.m. Wednesday in the fluffy rehearsal room! Bring your own.
[sound of piano and random tapdancing. It has a big finish.]
Authoritative Male Voice: Thank you! Next please.
Hopeful Scottish Voice: Would over here be convenient for you?
Authoritative Male Voice: Carry on.
Hopeful Scottish Voice: Over here? Are you thirteen amp?
Authoritative Male Voice: Next please.
[applause]
The band: [sings jaunty knees-up music hall-type song] ‘Get one of us for your trousers, get one of us for your [long distant wail that fades into echo]
[Brisk library orchestral music suggestive of a cheerful travelogue]
McCartney: [smooth Liverpudlian media person voice] Sitting with me in the studio tonight is a cross-section of British youth. I’d like, first of all, to speak to you, Sir Gerald.
Lennon: [stuffy officer-class voice] Oh, not a bit of it. We had a job to do, mind.
McCartney: Yes yes, quite. I don’t think you’re answering my question.
Lennon: Uh, let me put it this way. There was a job to be done.
[Reprise of ‘Christmas Time is Here Again’, overlaid with echoed laughing and pig noises]
Harrison: [overeager game show presenter] Onto the next round!
[Cheesy organ fill. Applause.]
Harrison: [newsreader voice] In the recent heavy fighting near Blackpool, Mrs G. Evans of Solihull was gradually injured. She wants, for all the people in hospital, ‘Plenty of Jam Jars’ by The Ravellers. Here it is.
[Honky-tonk piano introduction]
The band: [sings] ‘Plenty of jam jars, baby, plenty of jam jars for you, plenty of jam jars, baby, plenty of jam jars for you, [unintelligible] of jam jars, maybe, plenty of jam jars for yoooouuu.’
Lennon: [sharp smarmy gameshow presenter] And how old are you?
Harrison: Thirty-two.
[Applause]
Lennon: Never.
Harrison: I am.
Lennon: Get away.
Harrison: I am.
Lennon: Well, what prize have you got your eyes on?
Harrison: I have?
Audience: WHOOOOOO!
Lennon: [excited] Well, you’ve just won a trip to Denver and five others!
Audience: OOOOOO!
Harrison: Thank you!
Lennon: [even more excited] And also, wait for it, you have been elected as independent candidate for Paddington!
Audience: OOOOO!
Lennon: Look after yourself!
[Cheesy organ flourish]
The band: [sings, jaunty barroom-style number] ‘Get one of us for your trousers, get one of us for your [long distant wail that fades into echo]’
[Fade in bells]
Starr: [intimate murmur] Theatre Hour is brought to you tonight from the arms of someone new.
[Ringing tone]
Unidentified voice: [distort] Hello, I’m speaking from a callb- [fit of coughing]
Starr: [frantically jiggling phone] Hello? Hello, operator? Hello, operator, I’ve been cut off, I’ve [sound of growls, strangled yells] Emergency!
[Dramatic orchestra chords]
[Reprise of ‘Christmas Time is Here Again’]
[Heavily echoed clapping and dialogue]
George Martin: They’d like to thank you for a wonderful year.
Lennon: We’d like to thank you for a wonderful year.
The Beatles: Thank you, for a wonderful year. [heavily echoed] Carry on.
[More laughing and whooping. Organ chords.]
Lennon: [elderly Scotsman voice] When Christmas time is over, an’ yir bonnie gline is thru, it’ll be bristlin’ to yi people, all the best from me to you*. When the beastie drag all mutton, to the hair i’ middle hen, I’ll be struttin’ oot ma tether, to yir arms once again. Och, away, yi fine [inaudible]*
[Sound of winds and snow comes up and then fades]
Annotation:
‘From me to you’: a call-back to the band’s first undisputed No. 1 single.
Lennon reciting indecipherable faux-Scots gibberish: a call-back to their first Christmas record. The first time around, he sang clearly audible gibberish: this time he deliberately recites at too low a volume to understand.
The Beatles never again made a Christmas record together.
They only made two more. On each of them they preferred to record their own private thoughts, rather than create a world with each other. Lennon used the 1968 record to fire barbs at his bandmates; Harrison gave over much of his spot to the singer Tiny Tim.
Much of Lennon’s spot on the 1969 record was a conversation between himself and Ono. McCartney improvised Christmas songs. The other two said hi to the fans.
I prefer to think of them in a room together, at their peak, letting each other’s presence inspire them to new heights of silliness and collective good humour, and co-operation, and occasional aggression, and even darkness.
Like their music, but with less reach—but also, with less polish, and more loony spontaneity.
1968:
By the Christmas season of 1968, relations within the Beatles were becoming strained. The holiday message was produced around the time the “White Album” was released, in November of 1968. The four members’ voices were recorded separately, in various locations. There’s plenty of self-mockery. Perhaps the most striking moment comes when the American singer Tiny Tim (invited by George Harrison) strums a ukulele and sings “Nowhere Man” in a high falsetto.
1969:
The Beatles were in the process of breaking up when they recorded (separately) their final Christmas message in November and December of 1969. A couple of months earlier, just before the release of Abbey Road, Lennon had announced to the others that he was leaving the group. Yoko Ono appears prominently on the recording, singing and talking with Lennon about peace. Fittingly, the 1969 message incorporates a snippet from the Abbey Road recording of “The End.”
Every Moment Has A Song 