1963:

Every year from 1963 to 1969, the Bea­t­les record­ed a spe­cial Christ­mas greet­ing to their fans. It start­ed when “Beat­le­ma­nia” took off and the band found itself unable to answer all the fan mail.  “I’d love to reply per­son­al­ly to every­one,” says Lennon in the 1963 mes­sage, “but I just haven’t enough pens.” The first mes­sage was intend­ed to make their most loy­al fans feel appre­ci­at­ed. Like those that fol­lowed, the 1963 mes­sage was mailed as a paper-thin vinyl “flexi disc” to mem­bers of the Bea­t­les fan club. The record­ing fea­tures the Bea­t­les’ trade­mark wit and whim­sy, with a cho­rus of “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Ringo” and a ver­sion of “Good King Wences­las” that refers to Bet­ty Grable. It was made on Octo­ber 17, 1963 at Abbey Road Stu­dios, just after the band record­ed “I Want to Hold Your Hand.”

1964:

The band record­ed their next hol­i­day greet­ing, Anoth­er Bea­t­les Christ­mas Record, on Octo­ber 26, 1964, the same day they record­ed the song “Hon­ey Don’t.” Lennon’s rebel­lious nature begins to show, as he pokes fun at the pre­pared script: “It’s some­body’s bad hand wrot­er.”

1965:

Record­ed on Novem­ber 8, 1965 dur­ing the Rub­ber Soul ses­sions at Abbey Road, the 1965 mes­sage fea­tures a re-work­ing of “Yes­ter­day,” with the refrain “Oh I believe on Christ­mas Day.” The band’s gift for free-asso­ci­a­tion­al role play­ing is becom­ing more appar­ent. One piece of dia­logue near the end was even­tu­al­ly re-used by pro­duc­er George Mar­tin and his son Giles at the end of the re-mixed ver­sion of “All You Need is Love” on the 2006 album Love: “All right put the lights off. This is John­ny Rhythm say­ing good night to you all and God Bless­es.”

1966:

You can sense the band’s cre­ative pow­ers grow­ing in the 1966 mes­sage, Pan­tomime: Every­where It’s Christ­mas. The record­ing was made at Abbey Road on Novem­ber 25, 1966, dur­ing a break from work­ing on “Straw­ber­ry Fields For­ev­er.” The Bea­t­les were just begin­ning work on Sgt. Pep­per’s Lone­ly Heart’s Club Band. Instead of sim­ply thank­ing their fans and recount­ing the events of the year, the Bea­t­les use sound effects and dia­logue to cre­ate a vaude­ville play based around a song that goes, “Every­where it’s Christ­mas, at the end of every year.” Paul McCart­ney designed the cov­er.

1967:

This was the last Christ­mas mes­sage record­ed by the Bea­t­les all togeth­er in one place. Titled Christ­mas Time (Is Here Again), it reveals the group’s con­tin­u­ing exper­i­men­ta­tion with sound effects and sto­ry­telling. The sce­nario, writ­ten by the band ear­li­er on the day it was record­ed (Novem­ber 28, 1967), is about a group of peo­ple audi­tion­ing for a BBC radio play. Lennon and Ringo Starr designed the cov­er.

1968:

By the Christ­mas sea­son of 1968, rela­tions with­in the Bea­t­les were becom­ing strained. The hol­i­day mes­sage was pro­duced around the time the “White Album” was released, in Novem­ber of 1968. The four mem­bers’ voic­es were record­ed sep­a­rate­ly, in var­i­ous loca­tions. There’s plen­ty of self-mock­ery. Per­haps the most strik­ing moment comes when the Amer­i­can singer Tiny Tim (invit­ed by George Har­ri­son) strums a ukulele and sings “Nowhere Man” in a high falset­to.

1969:

The Bea­t­les were in the process of break­ing up when they record­ed (sep­a­rate­ly) their final Christ­mas mes­sage in Novem­ber and Decem­ber of 1969. A cou­ple of months ear­li­er, just before the release of Abbey Road, Lennon had announced to the oth­ers that he was leav­ing the group. Yoko Ono appears promi­nent­ly on the record­ing, singing and talk­ing with Lennon about peace. Fit­ting­ly, the 1969 mes­sage incor­po­rates a snip­pet from the Abbey Road record­ing of “The End.”

Relat­ed Con­tent:

The Bea­t­les: Unplugged Col­lects Acoustic Demos of White Album Songs (1968)

Peter Sell­ers Reads The Bea­t­les’ “She Loves You” in Four Dif­fer­ent Accents

The 10-Minute, Nev­er-Released, Exper­i­men­tal Demo of The Bea­t­les’ “Rev­o­lu­tion” (1968)

Pearl Jam front­man Eddie Ved­der and actress Jeanne Trip­ple­horn (Basic Instinct, The Firm, Big Love) per­formed this delight­ful cov­er of The Rolling Stones’ 1978 hit “Shat­tered” at a recent fundrais­er for a non-prof­it called Heal EB. EB stands for Epi­der­mol­y­sis Bul­losa, a dis­ease that caus­es blis­ters (some­times poten­tial­ly fatal ones) to erupt on the skin after the mildest trau­ma. You can lis­ten to The Rolling Stones’ orig­i­nal record­ing here, and fol­low along with the lyrics here. Or, bet­ter yet, you can close your eyes and sim­ply imag­ine Julie Andrews singing these risqué‎ lines. Yeah, on sec­ond thought, do that. H/T Marc

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Relat­ed Con­tent:

Watch the Rolling Stones Write “Sym­pa­thy for the Dev­il”: A High­light in Godard’s ’68 Film One Plus One

The Rolling Stones Jam With Their Idol, Mud­dy Waters

The Rolling Stones Sing Jin­gle for Rice Krispies Com­mer­cial (1964)

After read­ing some of the ency­clo­pe­dic com­ments on this NPR site fea­tur­ing author and pro­fes­sor John McMil­lian—who has writ­ten a new book on The Bea­t­les vs. The Stones—and after hear­ing McMil­lan him­self tell his “reveal­ing, behind the scenes sto­ries” in the inter­view below, I’m fair­ly cer­tain we’re in good his­tor­i­cal hands for a reap­praisal of the two bands’ friend­ly rival­ry. McMil­lan dis­cuss­es their first meet­ing and ear­li­est col­lab­o­ra­tion, the track above, 1963’s “I Wan­na Be Your Man,” writ­ten by, and cred­it­ed to, John Lennon and Paul McCart­ney.

The song was the result of a chance encounter, we learn from Stones his­to­ri­an Bill Janowitz: “[Stones man­ag­er Andrew Loog] Old­ham had almost lit­er­al­ly bumped into Lennon and McCart­ney as they stepped out of a cab.” Old­ham brought The Bea­t­les into the stu­dio and the song was born from a McCart­ney frag­ment. The Stones had to this point only released Amer­i­can R&B or blues cov­ers, though they also turned this track into a bluesy stom­per. Hear The Bea­t­les decid­ed­ly less grit­ty ver­sion of the song below, over a mon­tage of their ear­ly six­ties British com­e­dy act that the Mon­kees stole so well. They released this three weeks lat­er, giv­ing the lead vocal to Ringo.

Despite Tom Wolfe’s quip that “The Bea­t­les want to hold your hand but the Stones want to burn down your town,” the ear­ly six­ties ver­sions of both bands looked very much alike. Until the late six­ties, the Stones were often a step behind The Bea­t­les’ image. They appear on the cov­er of 1965’s Out of My Head in mod­ish dress with mod­ish hair­cuts look­ing almost exact­ly like their coun­ter­parts. 1967’s Their Satan­ic Majesties Request, for its occa­sion­al beau­ty, was an obvi­ous and slight­ly ridicu­lous attempt to cap­i­tal­ize on Sgt. Pepper’s psy­che­del­ic suc­cess.

But even dur­ing those times, the bands diverged sharply in musi­cal terms, and the Stones’ path led in a dark­er direc­tion. The bud­ding image of the band as arson­ists may have con­tributed to their tar­get­ing by the author­i­ties. After a 1967 drug bust, Lennon and McCart­ney came to their aid, then sang (uncred­it­ed) back­ing vocals for the Stones track “We Love You,” a song writ­ten to the band’s ded­i­cat­ed fans and to The Bea­t­les. Pur­port­ed­ly, Allen Gins­berg sat in on the ses­sions. “They looked like lit­tle angels,“ he lat­er wrote, “like Bot­ti­cel­li Graces singing togeth­er for the first time.”

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Watch the Rolling Stones Write “Sym­pa­thy for the Dev­il”: A High­light in Godard’s ’68 Film One Plus One

Mick Jag­ger Tells the Sto­ry Behind ‘Gimme Shel­ter’ and Mer­ry Clayton’s Haunt­ing Back­ground Vocals

Mick Jag­ger Defends the Rights of the Indi­vid­ual After His Leg­endary 1967 Drug Bust

Josh Jones is a writer and musi­cian based in Durham, NC. Fol­low him at @jdmagness