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The Beatles Christmas Album December 24, 2009

Posted by sebastianmusic in Uncategorized.
Tags: Christmas, fan club, George Harrison; Ringo Starr, John Lennon, Paul McCartnet, Ringo
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Perhaps the least known part of The Beatles’ catalogue is the Christmas messages made for members of their fan club between 1963 and 1969.  The Hamburg sessions produced by Bert Kaempfert in 1961 have more currency — Anthology I contains the three essential tracks from that period: John singing “Ain’t She Sweet;” The Beatles (with Pete Best instead of Ringo, and with Stu Sutcliffe) backing Tony Sheridan’s version of “My Bonnie;” and the instrumental “Cry For A Shadow.”  “My Bonnie” even reached #26 on the Billboard singles’ chart in 1964.

Apple released a promo-only album of the seven Christmas messages in 1970, and surely by now CD versions are easily available.  If you still refer to each of the Beatles by his first name — and expect everyone to know who you’re talking about — and especially if you are fond of Monty Python or even The Goons, you MUST get yourself a copy.

It is exciting to hear how the personalities develop over those seven years.  Their self confidence and their wit grow each year, with only a few minor clunkers amidst the gold.  The later messages also include wonderful music surprises, from Paul’s “Banjo Song” to the band’s full bore “Christmas Time Is Here Again.”

1963: The Beatles sound excited and innocent and oh, so young; George is only 20 years old.  The message opens with a demented ersion of “Good King Wenceslas” including some, uhh, non-traditional lyrics.  But even then, in 1963, we hear flashes of the cleverness that would win the world in only a few months.  John Lennon begins the spoken messages with “This is John speaking with his voice.”  He finishes with “I’d like to reply personally to everybody but I just haven’t enough pens.”  In the middle he makes fun of the words clearly written by some PR flack (or maybe by Brian Epstein himself).  Paul is next, doing a sincere explanation of how much the band enjoys working out new songs in the studio.  But when he gets to the section where the message is designed to make fans stop throwing jelly babies at them on stage he has a blast listing all the other candy that the band still like.  John becomes bolder about adding a wisecrack commentary; when Paul says people are telling him to stop so someone else can talk John shouts “Stop! Stop shouting those animals!”  As Paul finishes John sings some German to the melody of “Wenceslas” and ends with “Ja, Ringo!” to introduce him.

Ringo speaks barely three lines, but he sneaks in a surprisingly bluesy and tuneful verse of “Wenceslas.”  George takes the mike and says “Thank you Ringo.  We’ll phone you” as if he had just flunked an audition.  Then he puts in a plug for the fan club secretaries back in Liverpool, adding the names Frida Kelly, Bettina Rose, and Ann Collingham as footnotes to the world of Beatles history.  George sings a verse of “Wenceslas,” then John leads them all in a party version of “Rudolph” that includes the lyrics “Rudolph the red nosed Ringo” and “When everybody picked it…”  It ends with all four shouting “Merry Christmas Everybody!”

1964: We hear marching footsteps approaching the microphone.  Someone starts playing piano, and a drunken group rendering of “Jingle Bells” opens the message (love that lead kazoo!).  Paul is the first to speak, sounding more confident and playful than a year earlier.  He thanks everyone for buying the records, he knows they’ve been doing so because “the sales have been very good, you see?”  Reading from a script, he says he hopes fans have liked the records as much as the Beatles have enjoyed “melting them — no wait, that’s wrong!  MAKING them.”  John continues to supply background commentary; when Paul tells fans he doesn’t know where the group would be without them John adds “In the army, perhaps.”  Paul picks up on a comment John made in the 1963 Christmas message, making fun of himself as being in the same studio they’ve used “since the old days of “Love Me Do,” many years ago it seems;” in fact, they recorded “Love Me Do” barely 25 months earlier.  Paul passes the microphone to John with a sing-song “Jo-ho-hon.”

And again in 1964 John savages the script he is given.  Each of the times he is to say the word “too” he isolates it for humor; he even add-libs an imaginary “Page two” in the same manner.  Paul asks him if he wrote it himself, and John says “No, it’s somebody’s bad handwroter,” word play that now is obsolete but at the time was a clever pun on the word “typewriter.”  John thanks fans for buying In His Own Write (“it was very handy”) and says he’s working on a second book.  “It’ll be the usual rubbish, but it won’t cost much, that’s the bargain we’re going to strike up.”  John passes the microphone to George by saying “George, who will speak to you — NOW!”

George begin his section with a humerous “Hi there!”, but nonetheless his  is the most straightforward greeting of the year, he thanks fans for watching “A Hard Day’s Night” and teases that the next film — in a wonderful scouse accent — “it’s a-gonna be in color.”  John adds, “Green.”  George promises the next film will be a big laugh, and everyone does an Austin Powers/Dr. Evil big laugh.  Still, George finishes with a sincere sounding ‘happy Christmas” and teases that they might see fans on tour.

Ringo is next, and he is thoroughly drunk.  At one point we hear a huge crash off microphone and Ringo belatedly slurs “Who’s dropping that?” before returning to his list of places the band performed during the year; trouble is, Ringo can only remember America, New Zealand and Australia, and he mentions the antipodes twice.

It’s probably John who jumps on piano and leads the band in a non-Christmas song of “Can you wash your father’s shirt, oh can you wash it clean.”  Marching footsteps retreat from the microphone, with the periodic unison shout of “Happy Christmas.”

1965: Let the lunacy begin.  In 1963 and 1964 the sum total of the planning was determining in what order each man spoke, and either a “handwroter” script or just the instructions ‘you talk about the movie, you talk about the presents.’  Starting with 1965 we see a more sophisticated message that shows the Beatles were giving a lot of thought to what they would do.  Their exposure to England’s pre-Monty Python loons The Goon Show is an obvious influence, likely helped by George Martin’s experience producing some of The Goon’s classic routines.

The message fades in on a wacky but excellent group harmony version of “Yesterday.”  Later they return to this version but with holiday lyrics, finishing the song with “Bless you all on Christmas day” that uses a corny harmony arrangement on the final chord — but the performance really is top-notch.  After the musical intro, Ringo and Paul remind each other Christmas is coming and they should do a Christmas record.  George is the quietest of the four, but he is not silent.  On behalf of John and himself he thanks everyone for the cards and presents they’ve received over the year; John adds, in a sometimes unintelligible mumble, “On behalf of George and I, I’d just like to thank you for the ????????……and the rest of it.”

Paul says “Well, Ringo, what have we done this year?”  Ringo replies “I see you haven’t shaved again.”  After a tiny pause Paul repeats “Well, Ringo, what have we done this year?”, with some laughter from John or George.  Again the band makes fun of their touring schedule — “we’ve been away…and come back” says a sober Ringo, and John adds “Like last year.”  This is followed by the de rigueur thanks for the cards and presents.

John plays his guitar and demonstrates his terrific Scots brogue.  Only a few words are understandable — “Happy Christmas to you listeners wherein ever…. We belong to Edinburgh… Jack MacGregor…Christmas with a pound of Irish stew.”  John makes it sound like a drunk in an Aberdeen pub, and it is funny.  But he’s not done.  George says “Thank you John,” but John shifts gears — and guitar rhythn — to sing “Down in the jungle where the old black go / We got some, we got some…”  It morphs into “Auld Lang Syne,” with various members singing along on “For the sake of Auld Lang Syne my dear…”

Paul continues with the established theme — “Same old mic, same old studio” he says; Ringo adds “same old guitars, same old faces.”  John then begins an a capella version of the standard “It’s The Same Old Song” until George shouts him down with “Copyright, Johnny” — in order to avoid legal problems, the Beatles’ songs were the only copyrighted music allowed on the Christmas messages.  So Paul asks what they can do without a copyright, and John in a funny voice says “How about “We’ll Gather Lilacs In An Old Brown Shoe”?”  (remember that next time you listen to Past Masters Volume 2 and you hear George’s song “Old Brown Shoe”!)

Ringo and Paul then do what sounds like an ad-libbed riff about having fans in the army and playing a request for “all the boys in B.A.O.R.E.”, a fictitious branch of the British services.  John and Ringo swap fake weather reports, then make a BBC radio joke about tuning to a particular frequency.

Suddenly John is channeling Bob Dylan, singing “Auld Lang Syne” with Dylan’s voice, and pissed-off lyrics about Vietnam and China.  Ringo adds a line about bodies floating in the river Jordan, and when the singing stops he says “Well, that should cover Israel.”  Paul says the band has tried its best to please everone, and John interrupts to say “And if you haven’t got yours, send four pence in and get a free one.”

Back to music.  Perhaps it was an English folk carol, or maybe just an in-joke from Quarrybank Elementary, as John and then the others sort-of sing “Christmas comes but once a year / But when it does you know it’s here / Because we’ve got a ??????????? / For Christmas.”  Then it’s back to “Yesterday” with the Christmas ending.  The band continues to chant the occasional “Christmas Day” to the tune of “Yesterday” while John vamps in front.  Again he makes fun of their success, saying 1965 was a big year for them, one of the biggest since they can remember, and they can remember a lot of big years.  But then, completely off the wall, John adds “Take — take bugs.”  Then he’s back to an army unit reference.  He harkens back to the dueling weather reports by saying “And the weather is perfectly all right, thank you!”

And then the strangest thing any Beatle said up until the “We’re bigger than Jesus” interview a year later.  For some reason thinking of marriage’s “something old something new something borrowed and something blue,” John says “And don’t forget the old, the new, some folks blue, some folks green, you take no notice of them, it’s an all white policy in this group.”

A return to the Christmas lyrics of “Yesterday” with full harmony.  Just when you know the message should be over John adds “…but once a year.”  Paul or Ringo continues “Aye, and when it comes it brings good cheer.”  Ringo attempts to continue with “So don’t…” but is cut off by the others and a reprise of “Yesterday” with holiday lyrics.  Was this a Liverpool dirty carol?  I’ve always wondered what Ringo would have said if he hadn’t been cut off.

At this point the message is over.  We are treated to a few moments of Paul and George yelling at the recording engineer to “put the red light off!”  Amidst this John, in a character voice, says “This is Johnny Rhythm, just saying good night to youse all and God bless!”

Several sections of this message make no sense, but that doesn’t keep them from being very funny.  The manic and goofy nature of the message is a wonderful treat; in 2009 it remains a lovely insight into their personalities and creativity of more than 40 Christmasses past.  And, it turns out, they were just getting warmed up…

1966: The ultimate for group interaction.  All four Beatles seem to have been equally involved with the planning.  The theme song is an original, “Everywhere It’s Christmas.”  The recurring lyric, sung in British music hall style to a pounding piano, is “Everywhere it’s Christmas / Everywhere it’s sung / London, Paris, Rome, and New York / Tokyo, Hong Kong / Oh, Everywhere it’s Christmas / And I’m off to join the cheer / Everywhere it’s Christmas / At the end of every year / Oh, everywhere it’s Christas / At the end of every year.”  The Beatles trade off vocals when they list the city names, and some lines of the song are solo.  The song — or at least parts of it — are repeated several times in the message.

And we hear skits.  The Beatles are singing “Away in a manger” like choir boys when George says “Our story opens in Corsica…”  Ringo moves the site to the Swiss Alps where two elderly Scotchmen munch on a rare cheese (George: “Wonderful stuff this, Agnes.”  John: “Aye, wonderful stuff.”).  Ringo moves it on to what we learn is Felpin Mansion, home of Count Balder, son of the noble who invented the rack.

In the meantime Paul and John tell a wonderful story about Podgy the bear and his friend Jasper.  In true Lennon fashion the two are “huddled around the unlit fire.”  They are out of matches and candles.  Podgy says they must buy some, but Jasper says they are out of paper, too, and cannot write a shopping list.  “No need to worry” says John as Podgy the bear.  “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.”  Jasper asks “Who’ll remember the buns, Podgy?”  The answer is “We both will!”  So Paul says in Jasper’s falsetto “matches” and John says in Podgy’s basso “candles,” and they repeat them as they fade out.  It is inexplicably heartwarming.

The action moves to Felpin Mansion.  John is the count, and he knocks at Paul’s door to visit in his guest room.  The two men agree they like the “good old tunes;” Paul could be describing the Beatle catalogue as he says “So do I Count, so do I.  But they’re all melody, aren’t they?”  Paul launches in to “The Banjo Song, a hilarious sing-a-long that uses a banjo as a metaphor for an unfaithful lover.  “Please don’t bring your banjo back, I don’t know where it’s been.”  The chorus, where everyone joins in, is “And if I ever see another banjo / I’m going out to buy a big balloon” over and over.  This is high level silliness!

Another run through “Everywhere it’s Christmas,” and the message ends with general party noise.  We can hear someone say “Jolly good” as it fades out.

1967: “Christmastime Is Here Again” is the theme song for 1967.  Listen to Ringo’s drums and you’ll hear the recording fits perfectly with the Beatles’ psychaedelic period of “Hello Goodbye,” “Only A Northern Song,” “Penny Lane,” and “Strawberry Fields Forever.”  It has a specific link to “All Together Now” — the verse ends with the rhythm stopping and Ringo singing “O-U-T spells out.”  It is a tremendous recording and deserved to see release as a December single.

Overall this is the finest of the Beatle Christmas messages.  The skits are more ambitious.  And in keeping with that summer’s Sgt. Pepper album’s construction showing the group as an alter-ego band that would not have to perform live, the Christmas message is a long audition (Audition for what remains up in the air).  The skit begins with Paul intoning “The boys arrive at BBC house.”  We hear the overamplified sound of a door knocker, and John says in a dismissive way “Whaddayawant?”  The boys say in unison “We have been granted permission, oh wise one;” John responds with a respectful gasp and says “Ah — pass in peace.”  Somebody whistles as the Beatles walk into BBC House, with a section of the Christmastime song playing at times.

John announces there will be an audition “in the fluffy rehearsal room, bring your own!”  Next we hear an insane tapdance, followed by an audition of an old fart who never gets around to performing  Then a fake singing commercial — an idea Pete Townshend explored more thoroughly a few months later on The Who Sell Out — for a product called Wonderlust.

Suddenly it’s a BBC-TV interview show.  Either George or Paul is the compere, and John is the stuffed shirt Sir Gerald  “I don’t think you’re answering my question,” says the compere, and John rearranges his first answer with “Let me put it this way.  There was a job to be done.”

An abrupt seque to a TV game show where George shouts “On to the next round!”  Then it’s a request music show, where George pulls a Monty Python by saying “In the recent heavy fighting near Blackpool, Mrs. G. Evans of Solihull was gradually injured.”  She wants to hear “Plenty Of Jam Jars” by the Ravellers, and that’s what she gets — The Beatles as The Ravellers, singing a particularly stupid little song.  Think of it as an outtake of “You Know My Name,” it’s that funny.

John and George swap non-sequiturs as John tells contestant George what he’s won: “A trip to Denver and five others!” And even better, “– wait for it — you have been elected as independent candidate for Paddington!”

A reprise of the Wonderlust commercial, then Ringo introduces “Theatre Hour” by saying it is “brought to you tonight from the arms of someone new.”  He voices a silly bit about a call from a pay phone (remember them?) being cut off, but the dramatic sound effects sound like Monty Python’s routine about Ralph Melish from 1973’s Matching Tie And Handkerchief.

Suddenly George Martin says “They’d like to thank you for a wonderful year.”  The other George says “We’d like to thank you for a wonderful year.”  And the group says in unison “Thank you for a wonderful year.”

Then we hear a slow organ version of “Auld Lang Syne” with wind sound effects.  John does his sentimental Scots brogue again, practically a whisper.  No telling what the hell he’s saying, although there seem to be some words about Christmas times, and “all the best from me to you,” and ‘the heather and little inn.”  The poem finishes with something about “…to your arms once back again.”  And it fades out as John softly sings “Walk away, ye bonnie….”  It is a moving piece.

1968: To paraphrase The National Lampoon: The dleam is over.  This is the year The Beatles fragment and show a bit of a tin ear.  Just as The White Album — released while they were recording the Christmas message — was more a mish-mash of solo songs rather than a group effort, we see the same thing on the Christmas record.  Only one segment contains any interaction between Beatles, and it likely had been in the can for a year.  Everything else is solo segments edited together to make an enjoyable but chaotic recording.

Paul opens with his quiet Christmas song wishing everyone a happy new year, happy Christmas, happy Easter, happy autumn, and happy Michelmas “this year of 1968, going on — ’69.”  After a few verses we get a snippet of “Helter Skelter” played at 45rpm instead of 33.

It segues into one of John’s clever stories, worthy of In His Own Write or Spaniard In The Works.  “Once upon a time there were two balloons called Jock and Yono.”  They battled “overwhelming oddities, including some of their beast friends.”  Because some of the slurs thrown at them stuck slightly “they occasionally had to resort to the dry cleaners.  Luckily this did not kill them and they weren’t banned from the Olympic Games.  They lived hopefully ever after and who could blame them?”  The thick use of puns makes me wonder if any of the Monty Python guys was a fan club member who got this Christmas flexie disc.

George follows with a surprizingly cynical thank you.  Of course he makes fun of the Beatles’ success, but says “we” would like to say “happy Christmas to you, our faithful, beloved fans all over the world who have made our life worth living.”  He redeems it by introducing roadie Mal Evans to say a word of greeting “at this festive occasion.”  Buried in the mix over a music fanfare we hear the gentle giant say “Merry Christmas, children everywhere!”

The only interactive segment follows Mal Evans’ greetings.  It sounds like arbitrarily spliced questions and non-answers from unrelated Ringo and John conversations.  John in the guise of a Monty-Python-styled pepperpot woman apologizes to Ringo, “I didnt know you were coming.”  Ringo replies “I’m not surprized.”  John goes over the top — “Well I am!  Certainly am!  Well if you ask me I think it’s insane!”  John’s old lady is a warm stereotype — arguing prices and paying “19 and 5 to save me if you don’t mind!”; or “Don’t you say yes to me!  I’m telling you!”.

After that short throwback to the energy and playfulness of the earlier messages, Ringo introduces a singing Paul by saying “…he’s come all the way from Stokely Carmichael-On-Sea…”  We get another verse of Paul’s 1968 song “Happy new year, happy Christmas…”

John returns with an even crazier tale worthy of Spaniard In The Works.  “Once upon a pool table there lived a short-haired butcher’s boy…” it begins.  John uses some free association word play in things like “Her father was in a long story cut short in the middle of his life sentence.”  “The full meaning of Winchester Cathedral defies description.  Their loss was our Gainsborough Mill.”  He tags on another section with peculiar double-tracking unison, something about a birdbath feeling?

The main event turns out to be George Harrison, taped in New York with an absolutely dumbstruck Tiny Tim in tow.  George is gracious introducing Tiny and asking him to sing.  After all, The Beatles’ cartoon Yellow Submarine included some of Tiny Tim singing  his signature song “Tip Toe Through The Tulips.”  In the presence of BEATLE GEORGE HARRISON, Tiny is hyperventilating.  Of all  of “Mr. Harrison’s nice wonderful friends,” Tiny singles out Nat Weiss, the band’s American agent.  Then he announces he would play a song “I did in 1966 in front of Miss Jill for the first time.”  For those with lives too fulfilling to keep up with this minutiae, Tiny Tim got married in 1969 to Miss Vicki, not Miss Jill.  Anyway, Tiny planks his magic ukulele and belts out a, ummm, memorable version of “Nowhere Man.”  There is a nasty studio hum during part of the introduction, but all is forgiven for the subtle yet hilarious placing of backing sound effects; the Beatlemania screaming is too much.

Very different from the earlier years because of the absence of any group presence.  Little did we guess things would get worse.

1969: Four guys mailed in tapes from home to be edited into what proved to be The Beatles final fan club Christmas flexi-disc.  It is a far cry from the inspired lunacy of 1966 and 1967.  The biggest part of the message is John’s contribution, recordings he made at home with Yoko.  It is refreshing to hear Yoko as a 35 year old blushing bride, sounding tentative and happy discussing Christmas and the Elizabethan high wall with John.  But it’s creepy to hear their final segment decorating a tree, where John pretends to be a little boy asking for presents, and he calls Yoko “Mommy.”  And then there is the impromptu musical duet, where Yoko demonstrates that her vocal on “Don’t Worry Kyoto (Mummy’s Only Looking For Her Hand In The Snow)” was typical of her style.

Paul provides a new Christmas song on acoustic guitar: “This is to wish you all a merry merry Christmas / This is to wish you just a merry, merry year…”  It is smooth and calm, with a nice melody.  Paul also speaks a bit, hoping listeners have a very happy time at Christmas and “a good fortunate, lucky New Year.”

Ringo gets two segments.  He sings a short neo-traditional Christmas song citing “The coming birthday of your life, mama’s little boy”.  Later he returns chanting “Merry Christmas” until it morphs into “Magic Christian;” he finishes with a message to engineer Ken Scott “It’s just a plug for the film, Ken.  Try and keep it on.”

George gets the least time.  He sings a few lines of doggerel to wish everyone a wonderful Christmas and a happy new year.  He finishes by making fun of his Hare Krishna mantra by saying “Happy Christmas happy Christmas Christmas Christmas happy happy.”

I cannot stress enough how important the Beatles Christmas Album is to a better understanding of the incredible growth the band and the four individuals experienced.  It is great to hear them improve from “merely great” to “Oh! My! God!”, and to grow from adolescents to delightful young adults.  Equally powerful is the sad fragmentation of the greatest rock band ever.  After a few listens you will be wishing your friends a Berry Krimpble and a HAPPPPP-py goo year.