What’s the Deal with Pop Tarts? Jerry Seinfeld Explains How to Write a Joke

in Comedy, Writing | December 21st, 2012

This week The New York Times Mag­a­zine pub­lished a sto­ry titled “Jer­ry Sein­feld Intends to Die Stand­ing Up,” fill­ing us in on what the come­di­an has been up to in the 14 years since Sein­feld, the sit­com that seemed to define the ’90s, went off the air. As Jon­ah Wein­er explains, Sein­feld has been “liv­ing the life of a road com­ic, albeit one who sells out 20,000-seat Lon­don are­nas and schleps to gigs via char­tered planes rather than rent­ed sub­com­pacts.”

Despite his great wealth, Sein­feld has cho­sen to devote part of almost every week since 2000 (two years after the end of the TV show) to doing stand-up com­e­dy. At 58, Sein­feld remains ful­ly com­mit­ted to the craft of telling jokes to a room­ful of strangers. As he tells Wein­er, he sees him­self more as an exact­ing ath­lete than a tor­tured artist. “I’m not fill­ing a deep emo­tion­al hole here,” Sein­feld says. “I’m play­ing a very dif­fi­cult game, and if you’d like to see some­one who’s very good at a dif­fi­cult game, that’s what I do.”

And if you’d like to learn a lit­tle about how the game of stand-up com­e­dy is played, the Times has post­ed this inter­est­ing five-minute video in which Sein­feld explains the evo­lu­tion of a joke, from sim­ple child­hood obser­va­tion to care­ful­ly thought-out gag. “Where­as most come­di­ans are lazy bas­tards,” Sarah Sil­ver­man says of Sein­feld, “he’s the ulti­mate crafts­man.”

Relat­ed con­tent:

Come­di­ans in Cars Get­ting Cof­fee: Jer­ry Sein­feld’s New Series Debuts on the Web

Google Digitizes Ancient Copies of the Ten Commandments and Genesis

in Google, History, Religion | December 21st, 2012

If dig­i­tal tech­nol­o­gy pos­es any threat to the mar­ket for words print­ed on real paper—and the jury is still out on that one—then it must also be cred­it­ed for expos­ing us to texts from the ancient world.

Last fall we post­ed about how the Israel Muse­um dig­i­tized the Dead Sea Scrolls, near­ly 1,000 texts found on the north­west shore of the Dead Sea in 1946. They are the ear­li­est known sur­viv­ing man­u­scripts from what is called the Hebrew Bible. Dig­i­tiz­ing the texts—most were on parch­ment but some were writ­ten on bronze or papyrus—allows view­ers to zoom in to exam­ine the writ­ing and even the paper fibers of hun­dreds of frag­ments.

Now the Israel Antiq­ui­ties Author­i­ty has expand­ed upon the col­lec­tion. Housed in the Leon Levy Dead Sea Scrolls Dig­i­tal Library are the ear­li­est known copies of the Book of Deuteron­o­my (which includes the Ten Com­mand­ments) and Chap­ter One of the Book of Gen­e­sis.

Each scroll frag­ment was scanned using spec­tral imag­ing tech­nol­o­gy that allows for the recov­ery of writ­ing that had fad­ed to near invis­i­bil­i­ty over the years. The boon for schol­ars is clear, but for reg­u­lar folks this archive is bet­ter than a muse­um vis­it. The Leon Levy site is search­able by dis­cov­ery site, con­tent and ancient lan­guage.

Google is mak­ing its mark as a major facil­i­ta­tor of cul­tur­al preser­va­tion. Anoth­er recent project with ties to ancient texts and his­to­ry is Caminos de Sefarad, a col­lab­o­ra­tion with Red de Jud­erías de España to cre­ate a dig­i­tal map of Spain’s Jew­ish her­itage.

More than 500 land­marks from the Sefarad—the Sephardic Jews before they were expelled from Spain and Por­tu­gal in 1492—are ful­ly anno­tat­ed with cur­rent pho­tos, text and spe­cial details. Vis­it Rib­a­davia, a once-pros­per­ous city in Spain’s north­west moun­tains, and learn about Jew­ish wed­ding tra­di­tions from the Mid­dle Ages. The Jew­ish Quar­ter of Léon is called the Bar­rio Húme­do (Wet Dis­trict) and is known today for its fine wine and food. Use the time­line to keep your­self ori­ent­ed in chrono­log­i­cal his­to­ry and click Street View to see this vibrant dis­trict as it is today.

Kate Rix writes about dig­i­tal media and edu­ca­tion. Read more of her work at and thenifty.blogspot.com.

NASA Presents “The Earth as Art” in a Free eBook and Free iPad App

in Art, e-books, iPad, K-12, Science | December 20th, 2012

In 1960, NASA put its first “Earth-observ­ing envi­ron­men­tal satel­lite” into orbit, and, ever since, these satel­lites have let us observe the dynam­ics of our plan­et in a new way.  They can tell us all about chang­ing weath­er pat­terns, the impact of cli­mate change, what’s hap­pen­ing in the oceans, the coast­lines, rivers and more.

The satel­lites have also demon­strat­ed again and again the Earth’s aes­thet­ic beau­ty, revealed in the pat­terns, shapes, col­ors, and tex­tures seen from space. That beau­ty is what gets cel­e­brat­ed in NASA Earth As Art, a new visu­al pub­li­ca­tion made avail­able as a Free 160-Page eBook (PDF) and a Free iPad App. Fea­tur­ing 75 images in total, the app gives you a very aer­i­al look at places like the Himalayas, Arizona’s Paint­ed Desert, the Lena Riv­er Delta in Rus­sia (shown above), the Byrd Glac­i­er in Antarc­ti­ca, and much more. Enjoy the images, from the sur­re­al to the sub­lime.

You’ll find NASA Earth As Art list­ed in our col­lec­tion of Free eBooks. Also see these relat­ed NASA mate­ri­als:

NASA Archive Col­lects Great Time-Lapse Videos of our Plan­et

Ray Brad­bury Reads Mov­ing Poem on the Eve of NASA’s 1971 Mars Mis­sion

Great Cities at Night: Views from the Inter­na­tion­al Space Sta­tion

The Fascinating Science of Snow

in Science | December 20th, 2012

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow. Christ­mas songs and hol­i­day cards abound in pic­tures of pris­tine land­scapes cov­ered in fresh pow­der. But what exact­ly is that white stuff, any­way? In a lit­tle over two min­utes, The Chem­istry of Snowflakes gives us the answer. The film is the lat­est install­ment in the Byte­size Sci­ence series from the Amer­i­can Chem­i­cal Soci­ety. It’s an inter­est­ing look at a beau­ti­ful subject–and much more fun to think about than, say, the physics of shov­el­ing.

Fol­low us on Face­book and Twit­ter, and share the cul­tur­al good­ness with your friends!

via Boing­Bo­ing

A Christmas Carol, A Vintage Radio Broadcast by Orson Welles (1939)

in Literature, Radio | December 20th, 2012

Image by Carl Van Vecht­en, via Wiki­me­dia Com­mons

I wager that we could all recount the plot points of A Christ­mas Car­ol by heart. Fur­ther­more, I wager that most of us inad­ver­tent­ly com­mit­ted these to mem­o­ry not by read­ing and re-read­ing Charles Dick­ens’ 1843 novel­la (avail­able in our Free eBooks and Free Audio Books col­lec­tions), but by hav­ing seen or heard a dif­fer­ent adap­ta­tion of it each Christ­mas. The work has pro­duced an almost con­fus­ing abun­dance of pro­duc­tions on film, tele­vi­sion, and the stage, from Thomas Edis­on’s 1910 silent short to a Doc­tor Who Christ­mas spe­cial two years ago. Beyond that, we have count­less reimag­in­ings, like the ani­mat­ed Mick­ey’s Christ­mas Car­ol fea­tur­ing Scrooge McDuck as Ebenez­er Scrooge, and loose­ly Christ­mas Car­ol-inspired projects, like Scrooged with Bill Mur­ray. The sto­ry has also made its way to the radio many times, most notably in the 1930s, when Camp­bel­l’s Soup would spon­sor its year­ly appear­ance. In 1939, the “Camp­bell Play­house” brought in two espe­cial­ly for­mi­da­ble thes­pi­ans, Orson Welles and Lionel Bar­ry­more, and you can lis­ten to the result at archive.org, or right below.

Welles, of course, came in as no stranger to adapt­ing lit­er­a­ture for radio; he’d pulled off his infa­mous­ly real­is­tic Hal­loween drama­ti­za­tion of H.G. Wells’ The War of the Worlds just the year before. My per­son­al favorite of his adap­ta­tions remains the haunt­ing­ly askew Orson Welles Show ver­sion of Carl Ewald’s My Lit­tle Boy, but I can’t deny that he brings an entire­ly suit­able tone of mild grandeur, ini­tial­ly stern but ulti­mate­ly pleased, to A Christ­mas Car­ol. Bar­ry­more, an actor of both the nine­teenth and twen­ti­eth cen­turies who man­aged to suc­ceed on stage, in silent films, and then in sound films, plays the now-arche­typ­al miser­ly cur­mud­geon Ebenez­er Scrooge with a style that, for my mon­ey, falls sec­ond only to Scrooge McDuck­’s. But then, we can’t go com­par­ing car­toon char­ac­ters to flesh-and-blood per­form­ers, and Dis­ney’s Scrooge sure­ly drew his own sig­na­ture miser­li­ness and cur­mud­geon­hood (not to men­tion his name) from Dick­ens’, a fig­ure already firm­ly lodged in our col­lec­tive hol­i­day con­scious­ness, thanks espe­cial­ly to per­for­mances like Bar­ry­more’s.

Relat­ed con­tent:

A Christ­mas Car­ol by Charles Dick­ens

Orson Welles Vin­tage Radio: The War of the Worlds That Pet­ri­fied a Nation

Cel­e­brate the 200th Birth­day of Charles Dick­ens with Free Movies, eBooks and Audio Books

Col­in Mar­shall hosts and pro­duces Note­book on Cities and Cul­ture and writes essays on lit­er­a­ture, film, cities, Asia, and aes­thet­ics. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall.

A Christmas Carol Presented in a Thomas Edison Film (1910)

in | December 19th, 2012

TMC writes:

A Christ­mas Car­ol (1910) is an ear­ly ver­sion of the clas­sic Charles Dick­ens’ nov­el. Ten min­utes in dura­tion, this silent short was direct­ed by J. Sear­le Daw­ley at the Edi­son Film Man­u­fac­tur­ing Cor­po­ra­tion.

Added to the Silent Film sec­tion of our col­lec­tion, 4,000+ Free Movies Online: Great Clas­sics, Indies, Noir, West­erns, Doc­u­men­taries & More.

If you would like to sup­port the mis­sion of Open Cul­ture, con­sid­er mak­ing a dona­tion to our site. It’s hard to rely 100% on ads, and your con­tri­bu­tions will help us con­tin­ue pro­vid­ing the best free cul­tur­al and edu­ca­tion­al mate­ri­als to learn­ers every­where. You can con­tribute through Pay­Pal, Patre­on, and Ven­mo (@openculture). Thanks!

10 Great Performances From 10 Legendary Jazz Artists: Django, Miles, Monk, Coltrane & More

in Music | December 18th, 2012

Bil­lie Hol­i­day Sings ‘Strange Fruit,’ 1959:

Last week we brought you a post titled “Miles Davis and His ‘Sec­ond Great Quin­tet,’ Filmed Live in Europe, 1967,” fea­tur­ing Her­bie Han­cock and Wayne Short­er. The response was enthu­si­as­tic, and it remind­ed us that a great many of you share our love of jazz. It got us think­ing: Why not gath­er the mate­r­i­al from our favorite jazz posts into one place? So today we’re hap­py to bring you ten great per­for­mances from ten leg­endary artists.

We begin with Bil­lie Hol­i­day (above) singing her painful sig­na­ture song of racism and mur­der, “Strange Fruit.” The song was writ­ten by teacher and union­ist Abel Meeropol, who was hor­ri­fied when he saw a 1930 pho­to­graph of two black men hang­ing from a tree in Indi­ana, vic­tims of a lynch mob. Hol­i­day first record­ed “Strange Fruit” in 1939 and con­tin­ued to sing it, despite some resis­tance, for the rest of her life. The per­for­mance above was taped in Lon­don for the Grana­da TV pro­gram Chelsea at Nine in Feb­ru­ary of 1959, just five months before Hol­i­day’s untime­ly death at the age of 44.

Dave Brubeck Per­forms ‘Take Five,’ 1961:

The leg­endary pianist Dave Brubeck died ear­li­er this month, just one day short of his 92nd birth­day. To remem­ber him on that day we post­ed the clip above from a 1961 episode of the Amer­i­can pub­lic tele­vi­sion pro­gram Jazz Casu­al, with Brubeck and his quar­tet per­form­ing the clas­sic song “Take Five” from their influ­en­tial 1959 album, Time Out. The musi­cians are: Brubeck on piano, Eugene Wright on bass, Joe Morel­lo on drums, and Paul Desmond (who wrote “Take Five”) on alto sax­o­phone. For more on Brubeck, includ­ing a delight­ful clip of the elder­ly mas­ter impro­vis­ing with a young Russ­ian vio­lin­ist at the Moscow Con­ser­va­to­ry, see our Dec. 5 post, “Remem­ber­ing Jazz Leg­end Dave Brubeck with a Very Touch­ing Musi­cal Moment.”

Chet Bak­er Per­forms ‘Time After Time,’ 1964:

Last Decem­ber we fea­tured the clip above of Chet Bak­er play­ing the Sam­my Cahn and Jule Styne stan­dard, “Time After Time,” on Bel­gian tele­vi­sion in 1964. Bak­er is joined by the Bel­gian flautist Jacques Pelz­er, French pianist Rene Urtreger and an Ital­ian rhythm sec­tion of Lui­gi Trussar­di on bass and Fran­co Manzec­chi on drums. Bak­er sings and plays the flugel­horn. For more of Bak­er’s music and a poignant look at his trou­bled life, be sure to see our 2011 post, Let’s Get Lost: Bruce Weber’s Sad Film of Jazz Leg­end Chet Bak­er.

Duke Elling­ton on the Côte d’Azur, 1966:

On a beau­ti­ful sum­mer day in 1966, two of the 20th cen­tu­ry’s great artists–Duke Elling­ton and Joan Miró–met at a muse­um in the medieval French vil­lage of St. Paul de Vence, high in the hills over­look­ing the Côte d’Azur. Nei­ther one under­stood a word the oth­er said, but Miró showed Elling­ton his sculp­ture and Elling­ton played music for Miró. In the scene above, nar­rat­ed by the great jazz impres­sario Nor­man Granz, Elling­ton and his trio play a new song that would even­tu­al­ly be named “The Shep­herd (Who Watch­es Over His Flock).” The trio is made up of Elling­ton on Piano, John Lamb on Bass and Sam Wood­yard on drums. To learn more about that day, includ­ing rec­ol­lec­tions from the only sur­viv­ing mem­ber of Elling­ton’s trio, see our May 10 post, “Duke Elling­ton Plays for Joan Miró in the South of France, 1966: Bassist John Lamb Looks Back on the Day.”

Djan­go Rein­hardt Per­forms ‘J’at­tendrai,’ 1938:

With only two good fret­ting fin­gers on his left hand, gyp­sy gui­tarist Djan­go Rein­hardt cre­at­ed one of the most dis­tinc­tive instru­men­tal styles in 20th cen­tu­ry music. The clip above is from the 1938 short film Jazz “Hot”, which fea­tures Rein­hardt, along with vio­lin­ist Stéphane Grap­pel­li and the Quin­tette du Hot Club de France, per­fom­ing a swing ver­sion of the pop­u­lar song “J’at­tendrai.” (“J’at­tendrai” means “I will wait.”) To learn about Rein­hardt and the fire that cost him the use of most of his left hand, be sure to see our Aug. 10 post, “Djan­go Rein­hardt and the Inspir­ing Sto­ry Behind His Gui­tar Tech­nique.”

John Coltrane Plays Mate­r­i­al From A Love Supreme, 1965:

In Decem­ber of 1964 the John Coltrane Quar­tet record­ed its mas­ter­piece, A Love Supreme, in one ses­sion. A high­ly orig­i­nal blend­ing of hard bop and free jazz with spir­i­tu­al over­tones, the album is rec­og­nized as a land­mark in jazz his­to­ry. The Smith­son­ian Insti­tu­tion declared it a nation­al trea­sure. But Coltrane report­ed­ly played the mate­r­i­al only once in pub­lic, at a 1965 con­cert in Antibes, France. You can see a por­tion of that per­for­mance above, as Coltrane and his quar­tet play  “Part 1: Acknowl­edge­ment” from the four-part com­po­si­tion. The quar­tet is com­posed of Coltrane on tenor sax­o­phone, McCoy Tyn­er on Piano, Jim­my Gar­ri­son on bass and Elvin Jones on drums. To watch and lis­ten as the band plays “Part 2: Res­o­lu­tion,” see our 2011 post, John Coltrane Plays Only Live Per­for­mance of A Love Supreme.

Miles Davis on The Robert Her­ridge The­ater, 1959:

Most of the great per­for­mances on this page were pre­served by gov­ern­ment-fund­ed broad­cast­ing com­pa­nies, par­tic­u­lar­ly in Europe. Left to its own devices, the “invis­i­ble hand” of the tele­vi­sion mar­ket­place was fair­ly con­tent to ignore jazz and allow its great artists to pass unno­ticed and unrecord­ed. A notable excep­tion to this trend was made by the CBS pro­duc­er Robert Her­ridge, who had the vision and fore­sight to orga­nize an episode of The Robert Her­ridge The­ater–a pro­gram nor­mal­ly devot­ed to the sto­ry­telling arts–around the music of Miles Davis. In an extra­or­di­nary 26-minute broad­cast, shown above in its entire­ty, Davis per­forms with mem­bers of his “first great quin­tet” (John Coltrane on tenor and alto sax­o­phone, Wyn­ton Kel­ly on piano, Paul Cham­bers on bass and Jim­my Cobb on drums) and with the Gil Evans Orches­tra.  A sixth mem­ber of the small­er com­bo (by that time it had grown to a sex­tet), alto sax­o­phon­ist Julian “Can­non­ball” Adder­ly, can be seen briefly but does­n’t play due to a split­ting migraine headache. The broad­cast took place between record­ing ses­sions for Davis’s land­mark album, Kind of Blue.  The set list is: “So What,” “The Duke,” “Blues for Pablo,” “New Rhum­ba” and a reprise of “So What.”

Thelo­nious Monk in Copen­hagen, 1966:

Here’s a great half-hour set by Thelo­nious Monk and his quar­tet, record­ed by Dan­ish tele­vi­sion on April 17, 1966. The line­up includes Monk on piano, Char­lie Rouse on tenor sax­o­phone, Lar­ry Gales on Bass and Ben Riley on Drums. They play three songs–“Lulu’s Back in Town,” “Don’t Blame Me” and “Epistrophy”–with Monk giv­ing the oth­ers plen­ty of room to solo as he gets up from the piano to do his stiff, idio­syn­crat­ic dance. For more on Monk, see our 2011 post on the extra­or­di­nary doc­u­men­tary film, Thelo­nious Monk: Straight No Chas­er.

Bill Evans on the Jazz 625 show, 1965:

In March of 1965 the Bill Evans Trio vis­it­ed the BBC stu­dios in Lon­don to play a pair of sets on Jazz 625, host­ed by British trum­peter Humphrey Lyt­tel­ton. The two 35-minute pro­grams are shown above, back-to-back. The trio fea­tures Evans on piano, Chuck Israels on bass and Lar­ry Bunker on drums. To read the set list for both shows, see our May 31 post, “The Bill Evans Trio in Lon­don, 1965: Two Sets by the Leg­endary Com­bo.” And for a fas­ci­nat­ing intro­duc­tion to the great jazz pianist’s phi­los­o­phy of music, don’t miss our April 5 post, “The Uni­ver­sal Mind of Bill Evans: Advice on Learn­ing to Play Jazz and the Cre­ative Process.”

Charles Min­gus in Bel­gium, 1964:

In April of 1964 the great bassist and com­pos­er Charles Min­gus and his exper­i­men­tal com­bo, The Jazz Work­shop, embarked on a three-week tour of Europe that is remem­bered as one of the high-water marks in Min­gus’s career. The per­for­mance above was record­ed by Bel­gian tele­vi­sion on Sun­day, April 19, 1964 at the Palais des Con­grés in Liège, Bel­gium. Min­gus and the band play three songs: “So Long Eric,” “Peg­gy’s Blue Sky­light” and “Med­i­ta­tions on Inte­gra­tion.”  The group fea­tures Min­gus on bass, Dan­nie Rich­mond on drums, Jaki Byard on piano, Clif­ford Jor­dan on tenor sax­o­phone and Eric Dol­phy on alto sax­o­phone, flute and bass clar­inet. A sixth mem­ber, trum­peter John­ny Coles, was forced to drop out of the band after he col­lapsed onstage two nights ear­li­er. For more of Min­gus’s music and a look at his trou­bled life, see our Aug. 2 post, “Charles Min­gus and His Evic­tion From His New York City Loft, Cap­tured in Mov­ing 1968 Film.”

Joni Mitchell: Singer, Songwriter, Artist, Smoking Grandma

in Music | December 18th, 2012

Fans are always eager to find out what dri­ves their favorite artist to cre­ate. Hid­den tor­ment? Secret pas­sion? The pub­lic­i­ty-shy singer-song­writer Joni Mitchell has dropped more than a few lyri­cal cues over the last half cen­tu­ry. Things became infi­nite­ly more overt dur­ing the infor­mal por­tion of a 2008 inter­view with Char­lie Rose.

Want to know what spurs Joni? Cig­a­rettes!

She’s been hus­tling to finance her habit since she took them up at nine. What, you think she active­ly want­ed to be a singer-song­writer? No man, play­ing folk songs in the Cana­di­an cof­fee­house scene for fif­teen bucks a night meant finan­cial health, and finan­cial health meant she could smoke for­ev­er! Mod­ern audi­ences might expect such a sen­ti­ment from the rau­cous and now-dead Janis Joplin, but isn’t Joni more of a demure Ladies of the Canyon type?

Bob Dylan would like­ly say no.

These days Joni is tak­ing the straight­for­ward approach, no more peek­ing out from behind care­ful­ly-ren­dered poet­ic veils. Frankly, Grand­ma Mitchell seems unlike­ly to give a damn if her unqual­i­fied romance with tobac­co shocks. (It seems like­ly to, though per­haps not so much as some of her oth­er can­did­ly expressed views.)

Below, you can catch Joni dur­ing those free­wheel­in’ ear­ly days, play­ing a 3o minute set on British TV in 1970.

- Ayun Hal­l­i­day wish­es she could find the tape of the tape of the Joni Mitchell-James Tay­lor Uncon­cert that a friend’s friend taped off of WXRT back in the day.

Woody Allen Boxes a Kangaroo, 1966

in Comedy | December 18th, 2012

Last month, we fea­tured Woody Allen answer­ing thir­teen unusu­al ques­tions from Robert B. Wei­de’s film Woody Allen: A Doc­u­men­tary. Well, it turns out that it was­n’t the only unusu­al footage the doc­u­men­tary had to offer. Dur­ing the 1960s, the young com­ic did what­ev­er his man­agers (Charles H. Joffe and Jack Rollins) thought would enhance his pub­lic pro­file. Some of his ear­ly per­for­mances and stunts were genius. Oth­ers flopped. You decide where this one falls. In 1966, Allen appeared on Hip­po­drome, a British vari­ety TV show that show­cased jump­ing dogs, trapeze acts, musi­cal acts and … kan­ga­roo box­ing match­es. This match went one round, with the Aus­tralian light heavy­weight cham­pi­on land­ing the only punch­es.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Thomas Edison’s Box­ing Cats (1894), or Where the LOL­Cats All Began

Muham­mad Ali Plans to Fight on Mars in Lost 1966 Inter­view

Woody Allen and the Rev­erend Bil­ly Gra­ham In Con­ver­sa­tion

Listen to the Beatles’ Holiday Messages to Fans: Seven Vintage Recordings from 1963 to 1969

in Music | December 14th, 2012

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.”

Lis­ten to the Bea­t­les’ 1963 Mes­sage

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.”

Lis­ten to the Bea­t­les’ 1964 Mes­sage

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.”

Lis­ten to the Bea­t­les’ 1965 Mes­sage

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.

Lis­ten to the Bea­t­les’ 1966 Mes­sage

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.

Lis­ten to the Bea­t­les’ 1967 Mes­sage

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.

 Lis­ten to the Bea­t­les’ 1968 Mes­sage

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.”

Lis­ten to the Bea­t­les’ 1969 Mes­sage