XMAS BONUS: “Christmas Time is Here Again” by the Beatles

we're in the period between Christmas and New Year, the gap between episodes is going to be longer than normal, and the podcast proper is going to be back on January the 9th.

So nobody has to wait around for another fortnight for a new episode.

I thought I'd upload some old Patreon bonus episodes to fill the gap.

Every year around Christmas the bonus episodes I do tend to be on Christmas songs, and so this week I'm uploading three of those.

These are older episodes, so don't have the same production values as more recent episodes, and are also shorter than more recent bonuses, but I hope they're still worth listening to.

Hello, and welcome to this week's second Patreon bonus episode.

I'm recording this on December the 23rd, so whether you hear this before Christmas is largely down to how quickly we can get the main episode edited and uploaded.

Hopefully, this is going up on Christmas Eve, and you're all feeling appropriately festive.

Normally, for the Patreon bonuses in the last week of December, I choose a particularly Christmassy record from the time period we're covering in the main podcast.

Usually a perennial Christmas hit, like something off the Phil Spectre Christmas album or the Elvis Christmas album.

However, this year we're in the mid-60s, a period where none of the big hits of US or UK Christmas music were released, because it's after the peak of US Christmas music and before the peak of UK Christmas music.

There were Christmas albums by people like James Brown, but they weren't major parts of the discography.

So today, we're going to have a brief run-through of the Beatles' Christmas records.

These were flexi discs, which for those of you who are too young to remember them, were records pressed on very, very thin, cheap plastic, which used to be attached to things like kids' comics or serial boxes as promotional gimmicks, sent out to members of the group's fan club.

In a way, these were the Beatles' very own Patreon bonuses, sent out to fans and supporters, and not essential works, but hopefully interesting and fun.

They very rarely had anything like a full song, being mostly made up of sketches and recorded messages.

And other than a limited edition vinyl reissue a few years back, they've never been put on general release, though one song from the discs, Christmas Time is Here Again, was released as a B-side of the CD single of Free as a Bird in 1995.

time

is here again.

Other than that, the Christmas records remain one of those parts of the Beatles catalogue which have never seen a proper widespread release.

The first record was made on October the 17th, 1963, at the same recording session as I Want to Hold Hold Your Hand, at the instigation of Tony Barrow, the group's publicist, who also came up with a script for the group to depart from.

Well, I'm running over my time and people are telling me to stop.

Stop!

Stop shouting!

Hello, Ringo here.

As you know, I was the last member to join the Beatles.

I started to play drums in the group 1962.

I've been a couple of other groups.

Oh, I just wish the people were very happy.

Going for Christmas.

Barrow apparently edited the recording himself, using scissors and tape, and much of that was just taking out the swearing.

Incidentally, I've seen some American sources talking about the word crimble.

being a word that the Beatles made up themselves, but it's actually a fairly standard bit of scouch slang.

The second Christmas record was recorded at the end of the sessions for Beatles for sale and was much the same kind of thing, though this time they incorporated sound effects.

Hello everybody, this is Paul and I'd just like to thank you all for buying our records during the past year.

We know you've been buying them because the sales have been very good, you see.

Don't know where we'd be without you really though in the army, perhaps.

That was never sent to American fans.

Instead, they got a cardboard copy of an edited version of the first record.

It's possible to make records out of cardboard, but they can only be played a handful of times.

They wouldn't get another Christmas record until 1968, though British fans kept receiving them.

The third record sees the group parodying other people's hits, including a brief rendition of It's the Same Old Song, interrupted by George Harrison saying they can't sing it because of copyright, and an attempt to sing Barry Maguire's Eve of Destruction and Old Lang Syne at the same time.

in Vietnam

and look at the islands too.

And look on all those bodies.

Jordan, China.

Jordan.

Well, that looks as though it's about it for this year.

We've certainly tried our best to

please everybody.

Please, everybody, if we haven't done what we could have done, we've tried.

And if you haven't got yours, send Forbes in and get a free one.

And soon as we go.

The fourth record from 1966 was recorded

audience participation, songs, and old jokes of the, I do declare the Prince's Balls Get Bigger Every Year type.

As the title suggests, then, the 1966 Christmas record is an attempt at an actual narrative of sorts, though a surreal, incoherent one.

It comes across very much like the Goon Show, though like one of the later episodes where Milligan has lost all sense of narrative coherence.

gone a day when it became the scene.

Banjos, banjos, all the time.

I can't forget that shoe.

And if I ever see another banjo,

I'm going out to buy a big balloon.

And if I ever see another banjo, I'm going out to buy a bigger balloon.

And if I ever see another banjo, I'm going out to buy a bigger balloon.

If I ever see another banjo,

It's probably the best of the group's Christmas efforts, and certainly the most fully realised to this point.

The 1967 Christmas record, Christmas Time is Here Again, is even more ambitious.

It's another narrative, which sees the group playing a fictitious group called The Ravelers, auditioning for the BBC.

Heavy fighting near Blackpool, Mrs.

G.

Evans of Sullyhull was gradually injured.

She wants, for all the people in hospital, plenty of jam jars by the Ravelers.

And here it is.

It also features parodies of broadcasting formats, which I've seen a few people suggest were inspired by the Bonzo Dog Band's then-recent Craig Torso show radio performances, but which seem to me more indicative just of a general shared sense of humour.

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.

Oh, not a bit of it.

We have a job to do, Michel.

Yes, yes, quite.

I don't think you're answering my question.

Let me put it this way.

But that record has become most famous for having one of the closest things on any of these records to a full song.

The title track, Christmas Time is Here Again.

Christmas Time is here again.

It ain't been wrong since you know where

Christmas time is here again.

That's your

O U T spells out

And how old are you?

Christmas thirty two

as well as later being issued as the B side of a C D single that was also remade by Ringo as a solo record.

record.

Peace and love, everybody.

Here again, Christmas time is.

You know it makes us here again.

Christmas time is.

Peace on love.

Here again.

Get around

till you go where

Christmas time is.

Christmas time is here again.

Although my favourite use of the song is actually as an interpolation with slightly altered lyrics in Christmas Again by Stu of the Negro Problem, one of my favourite current songwriters.

Christmas Last

year again,

Christmas must be

here again.

Quanza Mazda Here again

Quanza Lazy

Here again

Christmas Time is Here Again would be the last Christmas record the group would make together.

For their final two Christmas releases, they recorded their parts separately and got their friend, the DJ Kenny Effrett, who was known at this point for his tricks with tape editing and who shared their sense of humour

to collage them together into something listenable.

The highlight of the 1968 record comes from George's contribution.

George, a lover of the ukulele, got Tiny Tim to record his version of Nowhere Man for the record.

Yes, don't worry, take your time.

Don't worry, Noah.

And for the seventh and final Christmas single, recorded after the group had split up, but before the split was announced, Everett once again coupled it together from separate recordings, this time a chat between John and Yoko, Ringo improvising a song and plugging his new film, and Paul singing an original Christmas song.

This is the wish you would Merry, Merry Christmas.

This is the wish you just a May merry

This ain't the wish you just a happy

new year

This is to wish you a merry, merry, merry, merry

new year

George's contribution was a single sentence.

In 1970, the fan club members got one final record, an actual vinyl album, compiling all the previous Christmas records in one place.

All the Beatles would in future record solo Christmas singles, some of which became perennial classics, but there would never be another Beatles' Christmas record.

And they're still the same one.

Turned it off, Basha.

Rog and roll, balloon.

Rog and and roll and roll and rock your way.

Up and down, round and round, we'll sway with the swell

in the spell of the rolling rock and rhythm of the sea.