Before internet transmissions girdled the globe, bands communicated news to their followers by means of a fan club. Usually, for a nominal fee (though there were extravagant ones too), each subscriber got a wallet-size official fan club membership card imprinted with name and member number, a subscription to the band’s official newsletter, the official fan club members’ merchandise order form, and a few tchotchkes.
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On the fifth Christmas record, the Beatles created a surrealistic parody of a BBC broadcast in which tap dancers audition, game show contestants vie, and an injured woman from Solihull calls in to request the Ravellers’ “Plenty of Jam Jars” for everyone in the hospital. These and other non-sequiturs are periodically interrupted by a new song, “Christmas Time (Is Here Again).”The Beatles seem to have recorded their contributions to the flexis from 1968 and 1969 separately. Lennon reads “Two Virgins” and other poems; he and Yoko chat about cornflakes and goof; Paul strums an acoustic and sings; George speaks to the fans and introduces Tiny Tim, who sings “Nowhere Man”; Ringo gets in a few words. Only on the tracks from the White Album and Abbey Road that play in the background is there a suggestion of more than one Beatle in a room.
John and Yoko recorded the Christmas single “Happy Xmas (War Is Over)” b/w “Listen, the Snow Is Falling” in 1971, and Paul released “Wonderful Christmastime” b/w “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reggae” in 1979. Ringo’s 1999 Christmas album, I Wanna Be Santa Claus, included a new version of “Christmas Time (Is Here Again).” George was devoted to Jai Sri Krishna, who didn’t know from Christmas. Some dickhead murdered John Lennon, and some fucker broke into George Harrison’s house and stabbed him.