Christmas Time (Is Here Again)

On November 28, 1967, The Beatles produced a fan club disc called Christmas 1967 (a "flexi-disc" pressed by Lyntone Records). It contained the expected mélange of patter, commentaries and jokes. It also contained the highly improvisational Christmas Time (is Here Again), a song credited to all four of the Beatles. All four joined in the vocals, as did producer George Martin and a visitor, actor Victor Spinetti. The song is interrupted at various times by small skits, mainly parodies of television personalities and advertisements. Starr and Spinetti do a tap dance, an ad for "Wonderlust" appears, and John narrates a nonsense poem of his own authorship, accompanied by Auld Lang Syne on the organ. The original version was over 6½ minutes long, but was shortened considerably by removing coarse language and laughter. This track remained a little-known relic of the Beatles era until it was released again in 1995 on the single, Free as a Bird. This version also includes some fragments from the 1966 Christmas greeting as well. (This was the last Christmas greeting from the Beatles as a group; the 1968 & 1969 messages were recorded separately and blended together.) Ringo recorded a version of this song in 1999 with Joe Perry (from Aerosmith) on guitar for his Christmas album, I Wanna Be Santa Claus.