An elaborate production, Christmas Time is Here Again! was developed around the concept of several groups auditioning for a BBC radio show. The title song serves as a refrain throughout the record. The Beatles portray a multitude of characters, including game show contestants, aspiring musicians (“Plenty of Jam Jars,” by the Ravellers), and actors in a radio drama (“Theatre Hour”). At the end John reads a poem, “When Christmas Time Is Over.” This offering was likely a deliberate homage to/continuation of the broadly similar “Craig Torso” specials produced for BBC Radio 1 that same year by the Beatles’ friends and collaborators the Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band, and also shares much in common with their then-unreleased track “You Know My Name (Look Up The Number)”,  recorded six months previously.

 

While British fans received a flexi-disc in an elaborate sleeve, American fans received a postcard similar to that of 1966.

Recorded: 28 November 1967 Location: EMI Studios, London Writer: The Beatles Producer: George Martin

Issued: 15 December 1967 Label: Lyntone, LYN 1360 Flexi disc: 7″, 1 side, 33⅓ RPM Total time: 6:06

– Hallgeir