For their first Holiday platter dished out on December 6,
1963, The Beatles grunt “Good King Wenceslas” and whistle “God Save the Queen”
as John Lennon gives a neat recap of the first phase of his band’s success and
says “gear” more times than a John Lennon impersonator. Paul McCartney begs for
a moratorium on the chucking of Jelly Babies, Ringo Starr reprises “Wenceslas”
like a lounge lizard, and George Harrison gets silly before all four fabs
mangle “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” while plugging another famous schnoz
into the lyrics.
In 1964, Beatlemania officially spread from the UK to the
rest of the globe, and the boys’ recent discovery of Ms. Mary Jane seems to be
the fuel on their Yule-log flame. The banter is a bit more lackadaisical than
on their first Holiday Record. Or perhaps they were just exhausted. They do
sound as knackered as they looked on the cover of the recently released Beatles For Sale… well, at least until
the brief but frenzied piano demolition that ends this year’s message.
The Beatles’ 1965 message gets started with a rowdy knees-up
of their latest rowdy number, “Yesterday”, before getting on to their usual
heartfelt holiday messages. Taking some time out from recording Rubber Soul, John voices his
appreciation for some rather original gifts he received from fans, then sings
silly songs in an…ummm, I don’t know?
Scottish accent? Next up is a reference to a George Harrison B-side that
wouldn’t be released for another three years, a quick Four Tops parody, and a
deranged version of “Auld Lang Sine” sung with Dylan-esque gravitas. Finally
they all get sucked down some sort of reverb-laden vortex, no doubt gearing up
for a New Year of acid experimentation and being bigger than that guy allegedly
born on December 25th.
Not their most well-remembered holiday carol, “Everywhere
It’s Christmas” (sung like the Upperclass Twit of the Year) begins
the record shipped to fan club members in December, 1966. What follows is a far
more elaborate production than those featured on previous holiday records, with
the boys enacting a surreal holiday story complete with weird chorales and
George’s memorable portrayal of Podgy the Bear.
1967 saw featured the most famous Beatles’ fan club record
thanks to the inclusion of their first and only full-band holiday song:
“Christmastime (Is Here Again)”, a
number as tunefully frothy as their recent number one hit, “Hello, Goodbye”.
Inter-cut within the song are snippets from a broadcast on Radio LSD, which
features that beloved World War II chestnut “Plenty of Jam Jars” by The
Ravelers.
To commemorate 1968, Paul McCartney does a “Blackbird”-reminiscent
improv, John name-drops his new paramour amidst his usual verbal gobbledygook,
Ringo goes insane, and a very stoned-sounding George pals around with Tiny Tim,
who lays down a characteristically shrill version of “Nowhere Man” on his uke!
All of this is glued together with some avant garde tape-tomfoolery straight
out of “Revolution 9”. Freaky.
Sure, The Beatles couldn’t stand each other by 1969, but
that neither stopped them from tossing together another holiday record or kept
Yoko Ono—who sloshes through the snow with her new hubby and sings like a
Disney thrush—from getting in on the fun. A bit of “The End” played beneath
this recording gives a good idea of where The Beatles’ heads were in late ’69.
Ringo plugs his burgeoning acting career, perhaps because he knows he’ll soon
be without a job. However, a little X-Mas ditty by Paul provides an unexpectedly sweet holiday treat.
While original individual copies of these rare discs fetch
as much as $600 today, a new box containing the entire set of these rather
bizarre and often hilarious discs is now available for a fraction of that cost,
and instead of crackly, wafer-thin flexi discs, they are on proper and rather
heavy vinyl in a multitude of festive colors courtesy of Universal Music. There
is quite a bit of sound variation due to the different sources from which the
messages were pulled. According to the notes, some of the discs were sourced from the flexi-discs, and I'd wager that these include 1963, 1966, and 1969. While the crackling is shockingly mild on the 1963 record, the others
sound considerably rougher. 1965 sounds like it was pulled from a cassette. The others sound much cleaner, which means that the most significant piece of music in the set, “Christmastime (Is Here Again)”, sounds nice. However, there are some distortions that likely result from the lo-fi way the original recordings were made, and be sure to take note that the 1964
record revolves at 45 RPMs rather than 33 1/3 or risk hearing the Fabs either sound
like some sort of Satanic Santa.
The package is suitably lush. Each record comes in a
shrink-wrapped picture sleeve with the original artwork (which became
increasingly psychedelic as the sixties progress). The lot of them is encased
in a gift box that’s only missing the paper and bow. There’s also a slim but
nice booklet with a short introductory essay by Kevin Howlett, repros of each
fan club newsletter shipped with each disc from 1963 through 1967, additional
photos, and a note about the creation of each record. Gear!
As a nifty stocking stuffing bonus, UMe is also issuing
Giles Martin’s recent 50th Anniversary stereo remix of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band as
a picture disc depicting the original cover on Side A and the custom Sgt.
Pepper’s bass drum head on Side B. Picture discs have a reputation for crackly,
dull sound, and while this pressing surely isn’t as crisp and vibrant as the
CDs in the box set released last spring, and the bass is still overbearing, it
still delivers generally good sound.
