December 15 – If Sgt. P And Magical Mystery Tour Weren’t Gifts Enough

John Lennon did it, so too did Paul McCartney. But surprisingly, The Beatles as a group never did. Put out an enduringly popular Christmas record, that is. But the closest they got to it was on this day in 1967, when they put out “Christmas Time Is Here Again.” 

Through the mail mind you. If you’ve not heard of it, don’t be surprised. It is featured in Mental Floss‘s “11 Christmas Songs That Never Really Took Off” for starters. And it wasn’t available in stores for decades after that. Plus, well… it really isn’t all that amazingly good. Even the Fab Four could from time to time make a misstep, after all. Although since it wasn’t designed to be a hit record, it perhaps served its purpose well. Let’s explain.

From 1963-1970, the Beatles sent out a special Christmas gift to members of their fan club. In Britain it was always a special edition record, usually a “flexi-disc” single, mostly a one-sided one, but in 1968 one with an a-side and b-side. American fans sometimes got the same disc but some other years had to settle for a nice postcard from the lads. Now these discs were rather light-hearted, jokey kinds of things… gag gifts if you will. No “this song is even better than ‘Strawberry Fields Forever’ and its only available to you” nor “here’s our new single, ‘Come Together’ six months before anyone else can get it” type things. Instead, the records generally consisted of holiday greetings from each of the members and perhaps a few randomly sung bits of carols or their hits. In 1965, they did a bit of an off-key, acapella version of “Yesterday” and went into the Four Tops “Same Old Song” before George tells them to stop because they might be violating copyrights. In 1969, Ringo and George do a little plug for the movie The Magic Christian, and little else. One year they had Tiny Tim play “Nowhere Man” on ukelele. Just as 1967 was arguably the peak of their creativity with regular records (see Sgt. Pepper…, Magical Mystery Tour plus singles like “Penny Lane”) it was arguably also the best Christmas record.

Unlike other such recordings they sent out, this year’s was produced by George Martin. A six-minute, 33rpm disc, it was a sort of concept based on the idea of them being a different band, auditioning for a music radio show, with John reading a Christmas poem at the end. Musically it featured the psuedo-band doing the song “Christmas Time is Here Again,” a rare one with all four credited as writers. While relatively melodic it was far from ambitious and quite repetitive… basically, the title was the lyrics, repeated over and over. They recorded it in one take, with John playing timpani instead of his usual guitar.

Since the number of copies sent out was limited, it wasn’t much heard. Eventually it made its way to record store shelves when it was put out, edited to just the song, as the b-side to the song “Free As a Bird,” the old, incomplete song finished up and put out to promote the Anthology compilation album. By which time, diehard fans wanting some Beatles at Christmas would probably opt for McC’s “Wonderful Christmas Time” or Lennon’s “Happy Xmas/War Is Over,” both already established holiday standards by then.

Even though they never resulted in any songs of lasting importance, the Christmas discs were important. One can only imagine the happiness the fans felt when they went to the mailbox right before Christmas and found a special record by the Beatles that so few people had. And it started a tradition for other bands to follow. Pearl Jam and R.E.M. are just two of the bands that followed suit and sent out special Christmas recordings to their fan clubs in later years.

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