Needless to say, this is a bootleg of all those annual flexidisk recordings the Beatles made for their various fan clubs. There once was a legitimate Apple release, The Beatles Christmas Album, which was out only for a brief time in 1970 and, needless to say, commands high prices nowadays. For the purposes of this site, I must point out that these recordings are only peripherally connected to Christmas; the holiday references could be excised from several of them with very little effort. The fact that they aren't generally available now is what makes them such a Holy Grail for Beatles collectors. If you're not a major fan, they don't make such great listening. For those of us who care, however, these examples of Beatle buffoonery serve as road markers for the various stages of their career -- lots of thank-yous for buying records in the earlier ones, "Goon Show"-inspired attempts at radio drama in the middle period ones, visits from Yoko and plugs for their solo projects in the later ones. There's a standalone version of "Christmastime Is Here Again," longer than the one on the "Free as a Bird" single, and an outtake from the 1964 recording on this particular collection. Having finally listened to the whole batch all the way through, it's quite evident why the surviving Beatles haven't made any effort to release these to the general public; they resemble nothing so much as home movies.
Complete Christmas Collection 1963-1969, The Beatles (Yellow Dog)
Needless to say, this is a bootleg of all those annual flexidisk recordings the Beatles made for their various fan clubs. There once was a legitimate Apple release, The Beatles Christmas Album, which was out only for a brief time in 1970 and, needless to say, commands high prices nowadays. For the purposes of this site, I must point out that these recordings are only peripherally connected to Christmas; the holiday references could be excised from several of them with very little effort. The fact that they aren't generally available now is what makes them such a Holy Grail for Beatles collectors. If you're not a major fan, they don't make such great listening. For those of us who care, however, these examples of Beatle buffoonery serve as road markers for the various stages of their career -- lots of thank-yous for buying records in the earlier ones, "Goon Show"-inspired attempts at radio drama in the middle period ones, visits from Yoko and plugs for their solo projects in the later ones. There's a standalone version of "Christmastime Is Here Again," longer than the one on the "Free as a Bird" single, and an outtake from the 1964 recording on this particular collection. Having finally listened to the whole batch all the way through, it's quite evident why the surviving Beatles haven't made any effort to release these to the general public; they resemble nothing so much as home movies.
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