The only song The Beatles wrote for their Official Fan Club
The Beatles were the first band to really go above and beyond for their fans. While previous artists such as Chuck Berry and Elvis Presley enjoyed a friendly relationship with their disciples, it was the Liverpool quartet who were the first to forge such close links with their followers. This relationship produced moments of artistic brilliance, adding an extra dimension to their already glittering oeuvre. It paved the way for the zines and myriad of special features that indie culture would produce in the 1980s and beyond.
One of the highlights of the Beatles’ relationship with their fanbase is the Christmas records they mailed out every year. This trend started in 1963, with each annual edition distributed for free to members of their Official Fan Club. The first was 1963’s The Beatles Christmas Record, with the last being 1969’s The Beatles Seventh Christmas Record. The releases were conceived as a means of appeasing their mass of fan club members whose letters were not always answered due to their volume.
In a manner expected of the group, alongside the songs, the records contained messages of thanks, skits, carols and other original pieces. A compilation of all seven, From Then to You, was released in 1970.
Although The Beatles sent out seven Christmas albums to their fans, only one of the tracks they wrote was specifically written for their Official Fan Club members: the 1967 effort ‘Christmas Time (Is Here Again)’. It’s also a significant moment as it’s one of the few pieces credited to all four members of the group. Notably, the creation is a blues-based number featuring double-tracked vocals from the band, producer George Martin, and, strangely, actor Victor Spinetti.
Christmas Time Is Here Again became the name of the album that contained the song. Released on December 15th, 1967, the title is a slight variation on the track, with the album based around the concept of several groups auditioning for a BBC radio show.
‘Christmas Time (Is Here Again)’ is the central refrain throughout the album, which sees each band member play a plethora of characters, including aspiring musicians, actors and game show contestants. At the conclusion, frontman John Lennon reads the poem ‘When Christmas Time Is Over’. It’s a likely homage to the ‘Craig Torso’ BBC Radio 1 specials made by The Beatles’ friends, the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band.
‘Christmas Time (Is Here Again)’ is the only song the Liverpool group ever wrote for their Official Fan Club members. Despite being one of their best-known Yuletide tracks, it remained officially unreleased for decades.
There was a planned release in 1984, but this hit a wall after the compilation album Sessions was cancelled. The band’s record label Apple then released a shortened version of the song in December 1995 as the B-side to ‘Free as a Bird’, with the full 1967 version finally reissued on the limited edition box set The Christmas Records in 2017.
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