Christmas Time (Is Here Again)

Song facts

From Wikipedia:

“Christmas Time (Is Here Again)” (Lennon/McCartney/Harrison/Starkey) is a Christmas song recorded by the Beatles for their 1967 fan club Christmas record. After being slated for inclusion in the planned (but ultimately scrapped) Sessions compilation album in 1985, the song finally saw official re-release in 1995 on the “Free as a Bird” single (issued in conjunction with the Anthology series), for which it was edited from its original 6:17 to a shortened version of 3:03. The song opens with a light-hearted tune from all four of the Beatles and occasionally cuts to a tale of the Beatles arriving at the fictional BBC house. This part of the song was cut from the 1995 single version. The song then closes with a Christmas greeting from all four of the Beatles. At the end, “Auld Lang Syne” is played on the organ as Lennon reads one of his original nonsense free verse poems.

From The Usenet Guide to Beatles Recording Variations:

• [a] stereo 1995.
  CD: Apple C2 8 58497 Free as a Bird 1995.

This compilation joins part of the title song to some greetings recorded for radio in 1966 (not for the 1966 Christmas record) to a short spoken performance by John Lennon. The first and last parts, making up almost all of the compilation, were made for the 1967 Christmas record, but the song appears here in very different form, in stereo for the first time, and running longer and including parts not used at all on the Christmas disk.

Last updated on December 7, 2020

Lyrics