Episode Transcript
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0:04
Welcome to Nothing is Real, a podcast about the Beatles. Everybody
0:06
thinks they know the Beatles, but how much do we really
0:08
know? My
0:18
name is Jason Carty. My
0:20
name is Stephen Cockroft. And we are
0:23
live on tape from Dublin and Belfast. In
0:25
the ever expanding universe of the 16 songs
0:27
of 66, it seems to make sense that
0:30
we should have a 17th song of 66.
0:32
This is a bit like The Hitchhiker's Guide
0:34
to the Galaxy being a trilogy in five
0:36
parts, but there is a 17th song
0:38
that came out in 1966 and it
0:41
is Everywhere It's Christmas, the Beatles fan
0:43
club Christmas single. Everywhere It's
0:45
Christmas. I think that counts 17 songs. I
0:48
think it does. I mean, we're not counting,
0:50
you know, there were other songs that they were working
0:52
on towards the end of 66, but they
0:54
didn't come out in 66. This is, does have
0:57
a true claim to be the 17th song of 66. Absolutely.
1:01
And if you want to be specific, I
1:03
think the song is Please
1:05
Don't Bring Your Banjo Back. We
1:08
come on to that. We come on to that in
1:10
a second. Now the Beatles
1:12
Christmas records are a fantastic parallel
1:15
universe and I still feel that
1:17
they are, even though we got
1:19
the 2017 box set, there's still a
1:22
bit of a secret history in terms
1:24
of the Beatles story. They're just a little bit
1:26
hard to get your hands on. And the thing
1:28
I love about this sort of secret history in
1:30
the Christmas records is, you know, they made seven
1:32
Christmas records from 63 to 69. This 66
1:37
record is right in the middle. So you
1:39
have three before three after the 66 records
1:41
right in the middle. And even if you
1:43
just followed the Christmas records, you can see
1:46
the Beatles evolution. Even if you just look
1:48
at the cover of the Beatles fan club
1:50
records, you can see the evolution of the
1:52
Beatles. So they're, they're a fantastic resource, the
1:54
Christmas records. The Beatles, the characters of the
1:56
Beatles at each stage in their career in
1:58
terms of the sort of young innocent
2:00
mock tops to the slightly more sophisticated stuff
2:03
in the mid-60s to the records
2:06
being recorded separately and
2:09
sort of pieced together. So even in the
2:11
way that these things are recorded, the way
2:13
they are produced, it's a parallel history. And
2:15
they are underappreciated because although we
2:17
did get that box set, I've
2:21
never played those records. What?
2:25
I bought the box. I bought the box. The
2:27
box is a cool thing to have. I actually
2:29
bought two, somehow by accident I
2:31
acquired two copies. Two boxes, yeah. That happens
2:33
to you a lot Steven, where by accident
2:36
you end up with two copies of things.
2:38
It does indeed. It's not to put you on
2:41
the box. I'd listen to them on YouTube. I
2:44
do think they're just not accessible.
2:46
They're not readily accessible. Why aren't
2:48
these things on streaming? But
2:51
I like the fact that they are
2:53
not readily accessible. I
2:55
never really sat down and listened to them all from
2:57
start to finish until the box set came out. I
3:00
have gotten into a tradition now where I
3:02
pack the box set away with my Christmas
3:04
decorations. I'm not looking at it all year.
3:06
Then when I take my Christmas decorations out of the attic,
3:09
this is sitting on top of one of the boxes. I'm
3:12
like, oh, it's time to give these all a spin again.
3:14
It's a very pleasant box set. I
3:16
think the 1966 Christmas
3:19
record is probably the pinnacle, 66 and 67. But
3:21
the 66 record is
3:24
a pinnacle because it sits right in the middle
3:26
between these early records where they're like, hello, we've
3:28
had a lovely year. And these records at the
3:30
end where they're just talking to each other. The
3:33
thing we should give a bit of credit
3:36
to is that the Beatles Christmas Flexi disc,
3:38
and it would come to just UK fan
3:40
club members as a flexible disc in the
3:42
week before Christmas, would come through their letterbox.
3:45
It's actually a very far
3:47
sighted idea that, you know,
3:49
in 1963, they were so popular,
3:51
they become so huge, there was no
3:54
way they could keep up with their
3:56
correspondence. So to do something special like
3:58
this for their fans, very
4:00
clever idea. It was
4:02
a very clever idea and we should
4:04
go back to friend of the
4:06
show Tiny Barrow. Tiny Barrow,
4:08
he's another star. He's the breakout
4:10
star of season
4:13
eight. But this
4:15
is apparently his idea more or less isn't it? Supposedly.
4:18
There are times when he will say yes it
4:20
was his idea, there are other occasions in which
4:22
he would say no no it wasn't his
4:25
idea. So just to
4:27
place Tony Barrow
4:30
in context, he is basically
4:33
a he has a job
4:35
as a freelancer writing pop
4:37
and rock reviews for the
4:39
Liverpool Echo. He's 17 when
4:41
he starts doing that. What were you doing at 17?
4:43
Were you enterprising enough to go
4:46
and start hawking your wares to the...
4:48
No, that was Cousin Pat did that.
4:53
Yeah no he's doing a he's kind
4:55
of working in 1954 as a 17 year
4:57
old schoolboy writing freelance pop rock reviews and
4:59
1954 is a good year
5:02
to start doing that kind of thing. Absolutely,
5:04
but arguably couldn't have done it before
5:06
1954 but you know he's there at
5:08
the beginning. So he's building up that
5:11
experience. He moves to London,
5:13
he starts to work for Decca where
5:15
he's doing sleeve notes you know for the
5:18
back of album covers etc but he's still
5:20
contributing. Discur is the weekly
5:22
record column to the Liverpool Echo
5:24
and in
5:26
that context he comes to the attention
5:28
of Brian Epstein who assigned the Beatles
5:30
in 1961. He gets in touch with
5:32
Barrow for professional advice and Barrow
5:35
basically recounts that Epstein asked him to write
5:37
a column for the band and
5:40
that he then arranged to get the Beatles an
5:42
audition. It's
5:44
a lead through informal arrangement where
5:46
Barrow becomes the Beatles sort of
5:48
part-time press
5:51
slash publicity consultant. So even
5:53
after they signed to EMI
5:55
he's doing press From
5:57
his desk at the Record Company....
6:00
Dhaka from his desk at their house. On.
6:02
Eventually he will end leave data on
6:04
Move To Names and May Nineteen Sixty
6:06
Three. Johnny Bower
6:09
opens Epstein first London
6:11
office on Then begins
6:13
to promote and task
6:15
as roster supply chain
6:17
Kramer the foremost. He.
6:20
Develops and and strategy so he
6:22
he thousand during telephone interviews with.
6:24
With regional. Newspapers and
6:27
then. Supposedly.
6:29
He comes up with this idea of you
6:31
without the smiley com we got your one
6:33
point the worth. Eighty thousand people subscribing to
6:35
the song. And dance.
6:39
Do. This. In
6:41
of this goodwill gesture and it might
6:43
limit the damage done to the grid
6:45
suffocation by the delays in responding biggest,
6:48
they're actually responding to individual letters. At
6:50
this point I'm thinking of ring Go
6:52
On The Simpsons Dear Marge, thanks for
6:54
your picture is a P M. Yeah
6:56
he is. He's quite far sighted and
6:58
it is a we take for granted
7:00
that the people do press junket so
7:02
they have a day where they sit
7:04
down and neither do a load of
7:06
interviews or to allow the phone calls
7:08
from. But I wasn't the prevailing at
7:10
media. Culture. In the early sixties is
7:12
in in British pops oh dear. he would
7:14
get people to sit on the phone, ring all
7:17
the local newspapers, give a few words and
7:19
kind of get the Beatles out there and this
7:21
kind of flexi discuss a similar idea that she
7:23
kind of spend money to make money artist to
7:25
get to get capital with the fans because think
7:28
Brian thought it was gonna be a bit
7:30
of a am a loss me a bit of
7:32
a last actually bother to do this and
7:34
didn't want to do it so Tony kind of
7:36
presses on the Beatles themselves to do with
7:38
yes that's exactly right. So he. Will.
7:41
Say in Nineteen Eighty Three he says it's
7:43
the Queen's Christmas. it's inspired him to do
7:45
this. He writes a book later and says
7:47
no not wasn't my idea at all but
7:49
I think be accepted thing is he went
7:52
to Brian. Brian says absolutely not gonna cost
7:54
money. To finance. The specific
7:56
give them away. Borrow. Think
7:58
this is a good idea and keepers and
8:00
he goes. Essentially behind Brian, Spock
8:02
goes and speaks to the Beatles who
8:04
think it's a great idea and then
8:07
they talk to Brian. I'm Brian to
8:09
sort of bounced into this so the
8:11
fan club get there first Beatles Christmas
8:14
message I to succeed threaten. Us
8:16
for the first three Christmas Records role
8:18
kind of of a type really Sixty
8:20
three, Sixty Four, Sixty Five, The Cockpit
8:22
of Christmas Record and Other People's Christmas
8:25
Record and the Beatles third Christmas record.
8:27
very very original but even across those
8:29
first three records you can see a
8:31
bit of a loosening of bird bird
8:33
that the kinda the structure of these
8:35
things because they're they're inevitably they start
8:37
to play to type that get out
8:39
of the four of them are are
8:41
there and eat you know the a
8:43
kind of started it's always something that's
8:45
don't with. A little bit of extra studio
8:47
time, We've got an hour to kill. Let's
8:50
do the Beatles Christmas record So kind of
8:52
starts pretty traditionally and sixty three were there
8:54
in the studio and they're just. Saying.
8:57
Hello and thank them back kind of thing.
8:59
Yes to This is basically scripted by Tony
9:01
Barrow and you know they're doing towels on
9:03
their to saying what a wonderful year Thanks
9:05
for all the presence cetera et cetera. It's
9:07
all very straightforward. There are so many people
9:10
in the fight club that they have to
9:12
do a second press sign. Of
9:14
the single that because I didn't The
9:16
New Year or in February by Ninety
9:19
Sixty Four. As
9:21
you say, they're sort of slipping into type
9:23
here, so again, it's sort of scripted. Paul.
9:26
Is trying to follow the rules to the were
9:28
would be with I to eccentric cetera John. Is.
9:31
pretty sarcastic so they say why would
9:33
you be is not and the beatles
9:35
and he says in the army probably
9:38
on they sort of mock the whole
9:40
say and they're deliberately misleading the script
9:42
and the sense of humor comes across
9:44
and as you said there's a sort
9:46
of listening ah of of the the
9:48
reins you that break the night from
9:50
the script year and and they'd the
9:52
second christmas record gets a run of
9:55
sixty five thousand copies which comes along
9:57
with a beatles newsletter and by the
9:59
time we to 65, they're a little
10:01
bit more aware, they're supposed
10:03
to be doing versions of songs,
10:07
but you know there's kind of Vietnam references and that kind
10:09
of thing slipping in. Yes, so there's
10:11
a little bit of politics
10:13
as they said in the 80s creeping
10:16
in, they're doing yesterday and it's
10:18
almost a send-up of yesterday because
10:21
I suppose there's a slightly
10:23
mocking aspect to themselves or
10:25
specifically the idea of Paul, you know it's the
10:27
way they would introduce it and I've heard Paul
10:29
McCartney have heard Paul, opportunity knocks. So they're making
10:31
fun slightly of the fact that Paul
10:34
has had this almost solo song,
10:36
but this is where it starts to, I
10:39
think for a modern audience, it's quite meta, is that
10:42
the word, where they're sort of referencing themselves
10:44
and making fun of themselves. That's
10:47
probably where their individual characters start
10:49
to emerge most. If
10:52
you got a fan club record in 1965,
10:54
you would have been one of the tens
10:57
of thousands, but there was an even more
10:59
elite Christmas record in 1965 that had a
11:01
run of checks notes, three copies. Three
11:04
whole copies and this is Paul
11:06
McCartney's Christmas album. What?
11:11
Wonderful Christmas time. Wonderful
11:13
Christmas time, decades early. So
11:16
yeah, in 1965 he records a Christmas album
11:18
of sorts as a gift to
11:21
his three bandmates. So there are only
11:23
three discs created and
11:25
Richie Unterberger describes this and
11:28
he said, unforgettable. For years it
11:30
had been reported that Paul McCartney
11:32
recorded an album at home around
11:35
Christmas 1965, specifically for the other
11:37
Beatles. Supposedly it includes singing, acting,
11:39
sketches and only three copies
11:42
were pressed and McCartney confirmed
11:44
this in the Many Years From
11:47
Now book and he said it was really a kind of
11:49
stone thing. And in 1995 with
11:51
Mark Lewis, he also confirmed
11:53
that it existed and went into a little
11:55
bit of detail. So
11:58
what we're saying here is that Paul McCartney... McCartney invented
12:00
the mixtape, the playlist. He was
12:02
a man ahead of his time.
12:04
It's almost like
12:07
a podcast you could say that he created.
12:10
He invented the podcast because that's what it
12:12
is. He invented everything. It
12:15
seems to be a sort of
12:17
mix of tapes and sketches
12:19
and skits and he has the wherewithal to
12:21
record this at home and he
12:23
also has the collide to get it pressed
12:25
up into a record. It does the tapes.
12:28
Yeah, and it's called Unforgettable and it starts
12:30
with Nat King Cole singing Unforgettable and then
12:33
Paul is kind of a cheesy US
12:35
announcer and he
12:39
gets pressed at Dick James' studio and if
12:41
only there was some way to hear this
12:43
in 2023. And
12:46
weirdly, weirdly, there is.
12:49
So in 2017 an 18.5 minute tape appeared on YouTube
12:51
with Paul
12:55
doing the impression of this jockey and
12:57
he plays Unforgettable, Someone Ain't Right by
12:59
Peter and Gordon, I Get Around by
13:01
The Beach Boys, Heatwave by Martha and
13:03
the Vandalas, Don't Be Cruel by Elvis,
13:05
Down Home Girl by The Rolling Stones.
13:07
So it is
13:09
out there and you can hear it.
13:11
Paul in describing it to Mark Lewis and said,
13:13
I had two Brinnell tape recorders set up at
13:16
home in which I made experimental recordings and tape
13:18
looks like the ones in Tomorrow Never Knows and
13:20
once I put together something crazy, something left me
13:22
and just for the other Beatles, a
13:24
fun thing which I could play late
13:27
in the evening. It was just something for the
13:29
mates basically. Around this time there's talk about Paul
13:31
McCartney's solo album and he was going to call
13:33
it Paul McCartney Goes Too
13:35
Far and John was sort of encouraging
13:37
him to do this. Paul, he's not
13:39
prepared to put this out in the
13:41
style of electronic sign or two versions
13:44
or whatever but this is a forerunner
13:46
of the sort of thing that John
13:48
does or George does and if
13:50
you remember all the way back to the Zappal
13:52
episode that we did where they talked about these
13:55
disposable almost like magazines. Yes, Zappal
13:57
would put these out. There would be interviews that
13:59
would be pulled. and ratings and he describes it
14:01
to Mark Lewis and in those times he said
14:03
it was like a magazine program full of weird
14:06
interviews experimental music templates and some tracks I knew
14:08
the others hadn't heard it was just a compilation
14:10
of odd things so
14:13
you know credit where credit is due Paul
14:16
is prefiguring in
14:18
late 65 what they
14:20
will try to do with Apple and specifically that what
14:22
Barry Miles will try to do with this Apple label
14:24
in 68. Yeah when
14:26
you listen to the YouTube version it does seem
14:28
more like a mixtape it doesn't seem quite as
14:31
experimental as he perhaps remembers it but it's still
14:34
it's still quite unique and you do have
14:36
to wonder how does something like that get
14:38
online because there's there's obviously
14:40
the original tape that was made of
14:42
the show so to speak the unforgettable
14:45
show there's three acetates made
14:47
so where did that tape come from it can
14:49
only have come from his archive to go online
14:51
and it does bring into the wider question which
14:53
is something we asked from time to time which
14:55
is oh my god what else is in that archive you
14:57
know what what other tapes and
14:59
demos and magical things from the 60s and 70s exist
15:01
there but it is incredible that this does exist and
15:04
it is online if you want to have a listen
15:06
to it yes what is
15:08
that archive again if they need some archivist to
15:10
come along and listen to everything totally
15:12
happy to do that also
15:15
sitting in this archive is apparently another
15:17
Paul McCartney Christmas record he's
15:19
never done making Christmas record well
15:23
this came to light in 2019
15:25
that he has a private Christmas record
15:27
that he has compiled over
15:29
the years at home that that's crossed
15:32
out every Christmas in the McCartney has sold yes
15:35
so he said in 2019 years ago
15:37
I thought there's not very good Christmas
15:39
records really so
15:42
I actually went into my studio over a couple
15:44
of years and I made one the kids like
15:46
it it's something they've heard through the years you
15:48
know and now it's the grandkids getting indoctrinated with
15:50
my Carol's record and he was asked you know
15:52
can we expect this to come out and he
15:55
said I will never release this is despite it
15:57
being popular it will never come out so
15:59
it'll come eventually I'm sure. We'll
16:01
expect it next year, anytime,
16:04
in multi-coloured vinyl editions. You
16:06
see there's another iteration of
16:09
McCartney 3 coming out? Is there?
16:11
Yeah, different colour cover
16:14
or something. Really, three
16:16
years down the track we've got another McCartney
16:18
3 coming? Apparently. It is a Christmas record
16:20
in McCartney 3, that's a hill I will
16:22
die on. But this brings us
16:24
to 1966 and by the time we get to 1966 and the Christmas record it
16:26
has its
16:30
own universe. It's not like here's
16:32
another message record, it has a
16:34
title which is Pantomime, colon, everywhere
16:36
it's Christmas. And what's
16:38
nice to think about it is they
16:41
have returned to the studio in
16:43
November 1966. They start work on
16:45
Strawberry Fields and then,
16:47
you know, we think of Strawberry Fields
16:49
as this very serious, very austere, experimental
16:52
piece of work and then they
16:54
take a break from Strawberry Fields to do
16:56
this which is very fun, playful, mop
16:58
top type behaviour and
17:00
perhaps not exactly what we think is happening
17:02
in the background of Strawberry Fields as creation.
17:06
No, you think of Strawberry Fields which is sort of
17:08
leading into 67 as being
17:10
sort of acid-fueled and very
17:12
serious and experimental. There
17:14
hasn't been a Beatles recording session for five months.
17:17
We can kind of walk through the evolution
17:20
of Strawberry Fields and that turns up on
17:22
Anthology 2, it turns up on the box
17:24
set, etc. They will go
17:26
back on the 28th of
17:28
November and sort of have another attempt
17:30
at that but in between, so it's
17:32
actually sandwiched in between the two recording
17:34
sessions, on the 25th of November
17:37
they said don't record their Christmas record for
17:39
66. So one I would
17:41
say very late in the day, in the
17:43
year to be doing this on the 25th
17:45
of November. Secondly, as you
17:47
say, this is a different type
17:50
of Christmas record because it's something
17:52
that they have scripted or more
17:54
specifically Paul has scripted. There's a
17:56
structure to it. He has a different type of record. He
17:58
has an idea and And this
18:01
idea of sort of pantomime in inverted
18:03
commas, which is quite an English thing,
18:06
I suppose, you know, maybe American listeners or
18:08
people outside England or outside the UK. Pantomime
18:12
is just, what, fairy tales
18:14
on a stage. There's people
18:16
dressing up, you know. Oh,
18:19
no, it isn't. Oh, yes, it
18:21
is. Oh, no, it isn't. It's
18:24
a very English Christmas tradition. And Paul
18:26
obviously has this in mind, but he's
18:29
controlling everything from the scripting to the
18:31
recording to the production to the cover.
18:33
This is very much Paul's
18:35
baby. Yeah, it is.
18:38
I mean, you're right. They've left it to the
18:40
11th hour. Usually they record these things more, you
18:42
know, the usually late October that they get recorded.
18:44
But obviously the Beatles have not been together near
18:46
a microphone for months. John's been doing, you know,
18:48
they came off stage at Candlestick Park at the
18:51
end of August. John went off to do How
18:53
I Won the War. George went
18:55
off on his travels. He's
18:57
kind of doing their own thing. And
19:00
this is the first time they've had the opportunity to
19:03
record. So yeah, the 24th of November,
19:05
66 is when they're back into the studio after
19:07
five months. They're doing this very
19:09
early version of The Final Apology 2 of Strawberry
19:11
Fields. And they're due back in
19:13
to work on Strawberry Fields on the 28th. But
19:17
it's in between on the 25th that
19:19
they start to work on this Christmas
19:21
record. And it's also unique because before
19:23
it's been kind of Tiny Barrows job to put
19:26
it all together. This time George Martin
19:28
is the producer and George
19:30
Martin is involved. And it's not happening at
19:32
Abbey Road either. So yes, so they will
19:34
record this in Dick James studio in
19:37
71 to 75 New York, straight London. So
19:41
this is just a very small studio
19:43
that Dick James, our music publisher, uses
19:45
to record demos and
19:47
things like that. But before they end
19:50
up there, they go to see Jimi
19:52
Hendrix at the Bag of Nails. Now
19:55
this is amazing that this is the day after
19:57
they start Strawberry Fields before they work on their
19:59
Christmas Clapton
22:00
grows his perm realizes there's a new
22:02
kid in town. It's all up for
22:04
grabs That is
22:06
such a weird thing for Eric Clapton to
22:09
do To
22:11
grow you see me Hendrix you think oh I'd
22:13
like an afro too and then I can be
22:15
like Jimmy Hendrix that's such a you know Clapton
22:17
was regarded as the the
22:20
greatest guitar player in London at the time and It
22:23
just seems very odd to me that it's like
22:25
a fanboy thing that that I'm
22:27
gonna go and get my hair cut, you know I
22:30
think in many ways Clapton was a trailblazer
22:32
in cultural appropriation. Let's put it that way
22:37
So yeah, so after Seeing
22:39
Jimi Hendrix kind of set the world on fire They
22:41
go into a small studio in New
22:43
Oxford Street to record a very silly
22:47
proto Monty Python kind of
22:49
post goons type of You
22:52
know Christmas record Yes,
22:55
and John Eden who is a recording
22:57
engineer He says it was an in-house
22:59
recording facility built within the confines of
23:01
an office structure and its main use
23:04
Was for songwriter demos so
23:06
it is not a sophisticated
23:08
studio. It will lead on
23:10
to DJM Records,
23:12
which is an independent record label in the late
23:15
60s Elton John is probably
23:17
the most famous but horse lips the
23:19
tremolos Danny Kerwin Dennis
23:22
Waterman he writes the theme songs.
23:24
He plays the theme songs People
23:27
outside the UK won't know what that means
23:29
and best to last John Inman released
23:32
records on the DJM label and
23:35
and also Jasper Carrot released his records
23:37
on the the DJM label as well
23:39
who Subsequently went on to become
23:41
a millionaire by being behind a production company
23:43
of who wants to be a millionaire That's
23:45
what Jasper Carrot does these days. Well,
23:48
he was better production company manager than
23:50
he was comedian as I remember I
23:53
went to Jasper Carrot live a few years ago in Dublin
23:55
and it was by 2018 and I thought
23:57
okay I'm gonna see Jasper Carrot live And
24:00
it was bizarre. It wasn't
24:03
funny, but he was kind of just telling stories
24:05
off the top of his head and being quite
24:07
charming about it. And then towards the end he
24:09
decided he would tell a great story about the
24:11
Royal Family and how friendly he was with them.
24:14
And that for some reason the Dublin crowd
24:16
were like, yeah, we don't need care about
24:18
this one, Jasper. And so
24:20
the show kind of hinted on a bit of
24:22
a lull. But it was very strange. Anyway, that's
24:24
enough Jasper carrot chat. But
24:27
back to pantomime everywhere, it's Christmas.
24:30
Yeah, they're in this tiny studio. Lord knows why
24:32
they wouldn't just use Abbey Road for
24:35
the purposes of it. But yeah, and
24:37
it's scripted by Paul. It
24:40
is scripted by Paul. I suppose
24:43
there's a narrative of sorts. It's
24:45
very strange. But yeah, he
24:47
scripts it. And this is something I only
24:49
found out when I was researching
24:52
this, is that I knew that he'd done the cover. But
24:55
he said, I drew the cover myself. There's a
24:57
sort of funny pantomime horse in the design if
24:59
you look closely. But if
25:02
you look at the cover, and we'll put this up
25:05
on X and on Facebook,
25:07
you can sort of see. You
25:09
can sort of see. No, I was squinting at
25:11
it last night like one of those kind of magic
25:14
eye pictures. And I'm like, oh yeah, there is a
25:16
horse shape there. The little bubbles are the legs and
25:18
the P and the T are kind of at the
25:20
bottom of the head. And I'm
25:22
kind of right here pointing up at the top. I do get
25:25
it. And once again, if you
25:27
are outside the UK or Ireland, the notion
25:29
of what a pantomime horse is might not
25:31
necessarily be readily apparent. So I do
25:33
feel we have to point out that a pantomime horse is
25:35
a character in most pantomimes where two people dress
25:38
up as the front and rear end of a
25:40
horse and then sort of gallop
25:42
around as
25:44
part of the show. My memory is that US
25:46
audiences would have been exposed to this on the
25:50
Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson, who had a
25:52
pantomime horse for many years running around in the
25:54
background. But yes, that's a pantomime
25:56
horse. It does look like a
25:59
pantomime horse. I'm squinting. at it now but you'd
26:01
have to be maybe a little bit chemically
26:04
altered to fully see it. So
26:06
it is Paul's baby, so
26:08
what is the logic of the story or is there a
26:10
logic to the story? Well
26:13
there are ten parts to this
26:15
story. It's all sort of
26:17
recorded, everybody sings on it, Paul plays
26:19
the piano, it then goes back to
26:21
George Martin who chops it up. So
26:23
it lasts for six minutes and
26:26
it includes various sketches including Poggie
26:28
the Bear and Jasper which is
26:31
probably my favourite, favourite
26:33
thing. There's a title tune, Everywhere
26:35
It's Christmas which is a very
26:37
kind of music called Vaudevillian style
26:40
and Ringo talks about this. He said we worked it out
26:42
between us, Paul did most of the work on it, he
26:44
thought up the pantomime title and
26:47
the two song things and we're
26:49
firmly back in Goons territory here
26:52
I think. And of course George Martin
26:55
is background in comedy records with
26:57
Peter Sellers, Spike Milligan, Goons etc
26:59
etc. Ken Wilmach in his
27:01
book Maximum Volume the Life of
27:04
producer George Martin says Paul McCartney once
27:06
remarked that everybody from Liverpool is a comedian.
27:08
This was certainly true of the Beatles whose wit
27:10
featured in many of their releases. In many ways their
27:12
shared love of comedy and witnesses brought George and
27:14
the band closer together and
27:16
this is probably the prime example of
27:19
that. So should we just briefly go through
27:22
the running order of what happens? Yeah. Follow
27:24
the plot. It opens with
27:26
the theme song Everywhere It's Christmas, Everywhere
27:28
It's Song London, Paris, Rome, New York, Tokyo,
27:31
Hong Kong, blah blah blah everywhere it's Christmas
27:33
at the end of every year so that's
27:35
there the kind of the overarching theme and
27:37
then it opens in Corsica where
27:40
a bearded man in glasses conducts
27:42
a small choir and there
27:44
is a sort of chant, Orowania,
27:46
Orowania that they chant and then
27:49
we go to the Swiss Alps where
27:51
a pair of elderly Scotsman munch on
27:53
a rare cheese and then to the
27:55
long dark corridor of Thelpen mansion home
27:57
of the Germanic Count Baldur. Even these
28:00
these names are all straight out of
28:02
the goons. Yes, it's very,
28:04
very goons. And yeah,
28:08
it then kind of proceeds through
28:10
this kind of evocative setup into the story
28:13
of Pudgy the Bear and Jasper, which as
28:15
you say is probably the best
28:17
one where, you know, they
28:20
have no more matches left and they have to go
28:22
buy some and then they need
28:24
to buy candles. So, you know, there's no
28:26
paper to write on Pudgy. No need to
28:28
worry Jasper, you just keep saying to yourself
28:31
matches and I'll keep saying candles until we
28:33
reach the shop. Then we won't need to write
28:35
it down. Who will remember the
28:37
buns Pudgy? We both will Jasper. And
28:39
then we'll just repeat the chant matches, candles,
28:43
matches, candles,
28:46
matches, etc, etc.
28:51
You're getting sleepy. What's not to love?
28:56
And then where we kind
28:59
of move on to getting to the Banjo
29:01
song that makes its first appearance. So
29:03
the title is Please Don't Bring Your Banjo
29:05
Back and the lyrics are Please Don't Bring
29:08
Your Banjo Back. I don't know where it's
29:10
been. I wasn't hardly gone a day when
29:12
it became the scene. Banjos, Banjos all the
29:14
time. I can't forget that tune. And if
29:16
I ever see another banjo, I'm going out
29:18
to buy a big balloon. That's the hit single
29:20
that never was. Well, you know,
29:22
between the two kind of songs and the chants
29:24
and everything else, there is, you
29:26
know, I said this is a hidden history. You
29:29
do have these little hidden beetle nuggets of songs,
29:31
you know, like in a year
29:33
or two, we'll be hanging on to nuggets
29:35
like, you know, Can You Take Me Back
29:37
on the White Album, you know, these little
29:39
kind of wild honey pie moments, but these
29:41
little fragmentary kind of melodic moments all start
29:43
on these types of
29:45
records. And it's all
29:47
very evocative. It is.
29:49
And I think it's very funny that Rolling
29:52
Stone gave it quite a serious review in
29:54
2017. So it said, though
29:56
brief, the songs are evocative and in
29:58
some cases quite memorable. Orowania,
30:01
ostensibly sung by a Corsican choir, is
30:03
a strangely beautiful pop hymnal that wouldn't
30:05
have sounded like a place on a
30:07
smile-era Beach Boys album. And the baudevillian
30:09
wink of please don't bring your banjo
30:12
back, I don't know where it's been,
30:14
is as funny as it is baudy.
30:16
And I think hilariously
30:18
funny that Rolling Stone are treating
30:20
it as
30:23
a straightforward review. And also
30:26
Brian is present at the recording which is
30:28
nice as well. Yes, that
30:30
is a nice thing that he's there. It's a shame that
30:32
they didn't get Brian to play
30:35
the part of Poggio or Jasper. No,
30:38
but we do have a special
30:40
guest star in Mal Evans. Mal
30:42
appears on the record. Mal does
30:44
appear on the record, absolutely. Which
30:46
is pretty wild. So
30:48
the kind of the single, it's the
30:50
first double-sided single, it's over six minutes
30:53
long and it finishes
30:55
again with Everywhere It's Christmas, the
30:57
theme song. And because there working
30:59
to a very tight schedule, you know,
31:01
they recorded on the 25th of
31:03
November, George Martin Goes Away puts it
31:06
all together, it's mixed on the 2nd
31:08
of December by Jeff Emmerich and Tony
31:10
Barrow and it gets released on the
31:13
16th of December 66. And it
31:15
comes in its usual
31:17
kind of fan club newsletter which is, you
31:20
know, written by Good Old Frieda and Anne
31:22
Collingham. So it has
31:25
an update and I think the thing we need
31:27
to remember is that the Beatles are,
31:29
for the first time, will not have a new release
31:31
out for Christmas 67. So, you
31:33
know, the previous three Christmases we've had with the
31:36
Beatles, Beatles For Sale, Rubber Soul, you know,
31:38
December 66th. There's no new Beatle product in
31:40
the shop. There hasn't been any new Beatles
31:42
material since August. And this
31:45
is the new Beatles single that, you know, the
31:47
people have to look at to see, well, what
31:49
are they up to? Are they still together? Are
31:51
they still doing stuff? And
31:54
yeah, the kind of the fan club letter covers
31:56
all of that and tells people what's been going
31:58
on in the recording. studio and even has the
32:01
lyrics to please don't bring your banjo back in
32:03
everywhere it's Christmas and so people are
32:05
waiting for this to pop into their letterbox to see what
32:07
the fab four are up to. Absolutely
32:09
and you think if you sold in a
32:11
vertical was 20 or 30 thousand copies of
32:14
single today would be number one. Yeah
32:17
the first Christmas record had the bank
32:20
club message printed on the sleeve but all the
32:22
subsequent ones come with this sort of folded newsletter
32:24
and as you say it's a sort of message
32:28
to say this is what they're doing this
32:31
is how it was recorded you know it
32:33
was done just after Paul came back from
32:35
Kenya wishing everybody happy Christmas
32:37
and a successful 67. This
32:39
is this is the single that
32:42
never was. How
32:44
long before we get the two songs,
32:46
all the songs extracted and put
32:49
together. Oh man we
32:51
really need Peter Jackson on speed dial the
32:53
thing I liked about their fan club note was
32:56
it was two things they talked about you know
32:58
Brian was in the control room and there was
33:00
a closed circuit television system so the people in
33:02
the control room could see what was happening at
33:04
the studio at the other end of the corridor
33:06
which sounds very very high tech and
33:08
you know the other thing that they
33:10
said they're quite clear in the fan
33:12
club newsletter to say unlike previous productions
33:15
this year's disc doesn't include actual Christmas
33:17
greetings from the Beatles instead the boys
33:19
devised this pantomime idea and it's longer
33:21
than any of the three earlier fan club
33:23
records so they're you know they're telegraphing it
33:25
in an appropriate manner. It is
33:27
reported in the music press so
33:30
for example it says Beatles
33:32
this is in the disc and music
33:34
echo so this would be tiny Barrow
33:37
doing this and it says into about 60,000
33:40
letterboxes this week slips a new
33:42
Beatles single and
33:45
then it talks about songs everywhere
33:47
it's Christmas please don't bring your banjo
33:49
back it would make you join the
33:53
fan club to hear what is
33:55
being titled as a new single and
33:57
again it's all treated very seriously.
34:00
Chris Hutchins writes, the Beatles survived good
34:02
humor once again. Instead of the usual
34:04
Yuletide gridding, they devised a pantomime as
34:06
a seasonal offer. This is definitely a
34:08
record, I think, the coverage is such
34:10
that it would make you want to
34:13
join the backdrop just to get these new songs. Yeah,
34:17
if you look at these press reports at
34:19
the time, again, you know, there's a Beatle
34:21
blackout in terms of new material, but all
34:23
of a sudden you have articles headlined, you
34:25
know, the Beatles, the best single money can't
34:27
buy, and the Beatles goon it up again
34:29
article that Chris Hutchins article, you know, has
34:31
a picture of Paul's cover, and
34:33
it has the kind of the front and
34:35
back cover of the single, and it even has
34:37
the dialogue of matches and candles, matches and
34:39
candles, all there. So, you know, for
34:42
people who are hungry, and you know, the only thing
34:44
that is coming into the shops from the Beatles
34:46
is a collection of Beatles oldies is coming
34:48
out. But yeah,
34:50
this seems very exciting.
34:53
But again, it doesn't really even though
34:55
it's a new type of Christmas record,
34:57
it doesn't really give anything away that
34:59
you know, the music they're
35:01
recording is Strawberry Fields Forever in between
35:03
all of this. No, there's
35:05
no hint of what's coming in Sergeant Pepper
35:07
or the Strawberry Fields Penny Lane single.
35:10
I suppose if anything, it is
35:12
a throwback to
35:15
radio comedy shows of early 50s, early
35:18
60s, but done in a very
35:21
surrealistic way. And I suppose
35:23
the only hint of what might
35:25
be to come is the fact that they're using studio
35:27
production techniques. And it's not just
35:30
a straight to microphone. This
35:32
is John speaking with his voice. Have
35:34
a lovely Christmas. Yeah, if you wanted
35:36
to get totally highfalutin about these kinds
35:38
of things, certainly
35:40
throughout the flower power 67 era,
35:43
there's very much this regression into
35:45
childhood motif that comes up where people
35:47
are looking back, whether it's kind of
35:49
the Victorian of the clothes or these
35:52
kind of childhood kind of memories, which you see
35:54
with said Barrett's work as well. So you can
35:56
think, well, actually, this is a little bit of
35:58
a harbinger of that because they're is
38:00
doing his thing in the 70s, people
38:02
are much less forgiving about the silly and the
38:04
goofy side of things. If he's saying, I'm going
38:06
to do a Bond theme and I'm going to
38:08
do Bruce McMouse and hope he can stop me.
38:11
I think it's the same kind of mind at work
38:14
there, whereas when he's in The Beatles, and he's like,
38:16
yeah, I've written a pantomime with silly songs, they're like,
38:18
yep, let's do it. The Beatles,
38:20
it's incredible how they kind of got away with being
38:22
able to do that, whereas by the time we get
38:24
to the 70s, John and
38:27
George are being very serious and Paul
38:30
still wants to play a little bit.
38:32
And that kind of goes out of fashion in a
38:34
way. That's a good point. I suppose by 1970, Rock
38:37
was taking it sort of extremely seriously. You
38:39
mean you would like to hear Led Zeppelin's
38:42
Christmas record? In
38:46
1970 or 1971, I was trying to
38:49
think, as you were saying, that, you know, would
38:51
the Stones do this? Would the
38:53
Who do this? But then I suppose the Who sort
38:55
of do that on the Who
38:57
sell out, where they put little skits
39:00
and ads and things in
39:02
between. So the Who have that comic
39:05
side to what they do as well, as
39:08
well as being incredibly pretentious
39:10
at times. But once
39:13
Who's next rolls around, they're
39:15
not going back there. They're
39:17
not going to do
39:20
that again. But I suppose the Who record is
39:22
the one that I would think of as being
39:24
comparable. Yeah, I suppose so. And a
39:26
quick one while he's away, but I haven't just read a
39:28
book, another book about the Who. I've read
39:31
the authorized biography of John Entwistle, which is
39:33
called The Ox, which I would recommend. I'd
39:35
put it on the long finger because I
39:38
didn't want to start hating John Entwistle. But
39:40
I've now read a Keith book, a Pete book, a Roger
39:42
book and a John book. And what you kind of realize
39:45
from a group like the Who in particular
39:47
is how did they get anything done because
39:49
they really hated each other's company all the
39:51
time forever, which is
39:53
very unlike the Beatles. The Beatles kind of
39:55
enjoyed being together up until up until
39:58
they didn't. And as soon as they didn't reach enjoy being
40:00
together they knocked it on the head which is kind
40:02
of quite remarkable whereas the
40:04
who from the get-go were never all
40:06
they were never a four-headed monster that's
40:09
just a side point it's it's kind
40:11
of curious and had the
40:13
who managed to get anything done can I just ask
40:15
whenever you say you recommend this book are
40:19
you recommending it in the same way that
40:21
you recommended the Phil Collins autobiography no
40:24
no I'm not I think the John
40:26
M. Twistle book is good he's a very strange man
40:28
I think he
40:30
he couldn't control himself for you
40:33
know he seems to have an
40:35
awful lot of compulsive disorders
40:37
going on in terms of how we would
40:39
spend money and acquire things and do everything
40:41
to excess but it is
40:43
a it is an interesting it is an
40:45
interesting read and because it's it's based on
40:48
a you know some of the papers from an
40:50
official autobiography he was trying to write in the 90s
40:52
it kind of dips into his own voice from time
40:54
to time and you know I kind
40:57
of feel sorry for him a little bit and
40:59
but you know he seemed to live the
41:01
life he wanted so maybe I shouldn't feel sorry for him it's
41:05
it's a three-day times but I would recommend okay
41:07
okay I think it is a good point
41:13
they enjoyed each other's company and they are
41:16
the point you made you know Paul has
41:18
been off in Kenya George has been in India
41:21
John and Ringo have been in Spain this
41:24
is the this is the second recording
41:27
session in six months
41:29
you know so they come back they
41:31
do a pass at strawberry fields and then they go in
41:33
and do this and it's maybe a nice way for them
41:35
to reconnect after
41:37
that time apart we should probably
41:39
give a nod to the final three
41:42
Christmas records because this 66 one is
41:44
right in the middle it's number four
41:46
of seven and you know the Christmas
41:48
time is here again in 1967 is
41:50
possibly the best well-known because it has a
41:52
fantastic actual song attached to it which is
41:54
the theme tune Christmas time is here again
41:56
which is lost on the B side of
41:58
free as a bird If you want to
42:00
that's the only place you can get the full
42:03
Christmas time is here again single But that is
42:05
actually a Beatles song that could exist as its
42:07
own standalone Song it's a brilliant bit
42:09
of 67 pops like it healing
42:11
and it does exist as
42:13
a standalone song on Ringo's Christmas album
42:17
He does a recording. Hey, yes, it I
42:19
have to say I I really
42:21
recommend that album That is such a good song
42:23
and there's a song on it called Christmas
42:26
dance which is
42:29
Fantastic Christmas song, you know
42:32
it my heart sank when I heard that
42:34
Ringo was doing a Christmas album I just thought this
42:36
is gonna be terrible and there are some terrible songs
42:39
on it. But half of it is
42:41
absolutely fantastic including a
42:43
sort of Well, people
42:46
should go and listen to it, but it's a kind of Harry
42:50
Nilsson style punning song
42:52
on it. Yeah. Yeah, I recommend
42:54
it. I recommend it But
42:57
yeah Christmas time is here again also has the kind
42:59
of them the same bit
43:01
of sketch work that they had in the 66 one
43:04
where John Lennon resides when Christmas
43:06
time is over when the Beastie bag drum button
43:08
to the Heather and little in and be frightened
43:10
ultimate tether to your Arms once back again. Oh,
43:12
come away your Bonnie. It's nice to think that
43:14
in 1967
43:16
for Christmas they were doing a single
43:18
a TV special a double EP and
43:20
also a fan club record They were
43:23
giving it their all still at the end of 67 value
43:26
from mine But the last two Christmas
43:28
records are very different These are 68
43:30
and 69 and these are not recorded
43:32
together And in this notion that
43:34
the the Christmas records are a parallel history of what
43:37
happens with the Beatles Them
43:39
not recording the Christmas 68 and Christmas
43:41
69 records together is emblematic of that.
43:43
Yes Absolutely. So
43:45
by 68 they're recording things
43:49
Separately and and sort of slotting it together And
43:51
if you look at the liner notes, it says
43:53
recorded in November 1968 at
43:55
the lush London homes of Beatle John and
43:58
Beatle Paul and in the back of Beetle
44:00
Ringo's diesel part removal fan somewhere in
44:02
Surrey. The voice of Beetle George is
44:04
heard because, eursofidfully, the GPD
44:07
did something right and joined up
44:09
6,000 miles of telephone links
44:11
at an appropriate moment. Additional material was
44:13
recorded earlier in the elegant eater home
44:15
of Beetle George during the
44:17
rehearsal sessions for the Beatles LP album set.
44:19
So they're making no bones about the fact
44:23
that this is all recorded separately.
44:25
So we get a little acoustic
44:27
number from Paul, John
44:29
besides, jock and yono, and
44:33
Once Upon a Pool Table. But
44:35
the highlight is not from a beetle,
44:38
the highlight is from Tiny
44:40
Tim, who shows
44:42
up singing, singing Nowhere
44:44
Man, Nowhere Man. Is that not
44:46
your, that's the highlight of your unpacking
44:49
your Christmas decorations and Beatles box set
44:51
to hear Tiny Tim singing Nowhere Man.
44:54
If you want a depressing book recommendation, read
44:57
Tiny Tim's biography. That is a hard read.
45:00
Yeah, 68 and 69's discs are
45:02
put together by Morris Cole, aka
45:04
Kenny Everett. The Christmas
45:07
69 one exists in that realm that
45:09
we call Schrodinger's Beatles, where even
45:11
though the Beatles have supposedly split up, they
45:13
have still decided to put together a Christmas
45:15
record and send it to all the fans
45:18
in December 1969, which,
45:20
you know, features all
45:23
four Beatles on a record in December 69. Yeah,
45:27
so, you know, Paul does quite
45:29
well, he's committed. John has
45:31
a chat with Yoko. George, I think gets
45:33
one line, and Ringo
45:36
just says, hey Kenny, could you
45:38
plug Magic Christian, which is
45:40
the movie. And Kenny Everett manages
45:42
to turn that into a little kind of speeded
45:44
up jingle.
45:46
So as you say, it absolutely
45:49
reflects the fact that they are
45:52
apart. They're not even prepared
45:54
to get in the studio together.
45:57
To do this. Yeah.
46:00
but there is Beatle business to be done which
46:02
is curious however by December 1970
46:04
there isn't a Beatles Christmas record anymore because
46:06
there isn't a Beatles so they just assemble
46:08
them all together and put them
46:11
out of the compilation of P called
46:13
From Then to You and you could argue
46:15
that this is perhaps something that should
46:18
have been maybe made more official if
46:20
people wanted to hear these things but
46:22
1970 is also you know we're in
46:24
full tilt bootleg boom time
46:26
and so this kind of
46:28
Christmas collection gets essentially
46:31
circulated as a as a bootleg.
46:34
Yeah so it becomes one of the most widely
46:36
available bootlegs and it makes it
46:38
very difficult to determine you
46:40
know it's difficult to tell the bootleg
46:42
from the original so the original LP
46:46
version goes for serious money but
46:49
most of the ones that I've ever seen
46:51
I'm pretty certain have been copies
46:56
these were never available outside
46:58
the UK so the
47:00
seven messages in America put out in
47:02
it's really came out in the spring
47:04
of 1971 that's the first time
47:07
these things had been available in
47:09
the US until 2017 when we
47:12
got our box set and I think
47:14
the box set is nice should it be more widely
47:17
available should you be able to pick it up whenever
47:19
you want yeah there's arguments for that I I think
47:21
there is an argument for not releasing it as a
47:23
general release because I don't think a lot of people
47:25
would understand I know they would think it would be
47:28
a an album of Christmas classics and it's it's not
47:30
and I would annoy people but it's
47:32
out there if you wanted and the box sets in
47:35
2017 is a nice thing however it's
47:37
going for about 250 quid these days
47:39
which is about twice what most
47:41
people paid for it originally but
47:43
it's a nice you know box
47:45
with seven colored vinyl records in
47:48
reproduction sleeves and you know
47:50
a covering book to tell us
47:52
all what we need it's got the nice original
47:54
Beatles logo it doesn't have to drop T logo
47:56
it has the curly B with antennae logo which
47:59
is nice to see on an official Beatles
48:01
release. I think I must now
48:04
go and play it for the first time. You
48:07
should go and treat yourself. I mean, these discs, if you do
48:09
want to buy them in 2023, do have a value. The
48:13
63 to 65 discs are going for about 30 quid,
48:16
but the one we're talking about today, the 17th song
48:18
of 66, 150 quid is pretty valuable. 67
48:23
goes for about 50 quid, 68 goes for about 100 quid, and 69
48:25
goes for 150. And
48:30
the 1970 record goes for 350 pounds. So
48:34
people can convert that into their own local currency.
48:36
But that is, you know, if you have a
48:38
full set, you'd make a good bit of money.
48:40
Make a tidy sum. I have the first three
48:42
that I've picked up for sort of 20 quid
48:44
each. And I would dearly love to
48:46
get the rest, but I couldn't possibly justify spending
48:48
150, 200 quid. If
48:51
I win the lottery, that's what I'll go on. I
48:54
think you could justify it, you know. That
48:57
set of completion, that John Entwistle gene
48:59
that you have to buy one of
49:01
everything. Yeah, that's true. That
49:04
OCD, I need the set, I need the set.
49:06
But yeah, that is the 17th song of
49:09
1966. So
49:13
the 17th of the 16 songs that
49:15
came out to about 60,000
49:17
UK fans from whom it dropped into
49:19
their letterbox in
49:22
order to give an indication of what the Beatles
49:24
were up to when it seemed like they'd been
49:26
quiet for a relatively short time
49:28
in 2023. I said, four months? Oh
49:30
my God, what could the Beatles have? All months.
49:32
But they're not finished. This was an indication that
49:35
they were back in the studio, that they were
49:37
still funny, they were still entertaining. And
49:39
yeah, I think everybody should go away and dig
49:41
out their Christmas records box set or see which
49:43
bits and pieces you can find on YouTube. They're
49:45
not all on YouTube. It's a bit tricky. I
49:47
think Apple kind of champed down a few years
49:49
ago on them circulating them on
49:52
YouTube. But they are always a fun listen at
49:54
this time of year. So
49:56
yeah, I think you should break out your box, Steven. I
49:59
will do that as soon as possible. as we finish
50:01
recording this I'm going to spend the day in front
50:03
of a crackling log fire roasting chestnuts and listening to
50:06
the Beatles singles. You
50:09
heard it here first. But what do
50:11
you think everybody? The 17th song of 1966. We want to
50:15
thank all our ACAS Plus supporters. You
50:18
know we have to leave 2023 on a nice Christmassy
50:22
note and obviously we're available in all
50:24
the usual places www.nothingisrealpod.com x
50:27
the Nothing Is Real Facebook group. Give
50:29
us a nudge and tell us what you think about
50:32
all the Christmas records. But for now my name
50:34
is Jasper and my name is Podgy the Bear.
50:37
Candles, matches, candles,
50:41
matches, candles, matches,
50:47
matches, candles, matches,
50:51
candles, matches,
51:13
I don't think we can fade out on that. That's
51:15
enough to drive people crazy. Thanks
51:19
for listening to Nothing Is Real. We hope you
51:22
enjoyed today's episode and if you did why not
51:24
become a member. You'll get access to ad free
51:26
content, bonus episodes and so much more. Follow the
51:28
link in the show notes, sign up on ACAS
51:30
Plus or visit our website nothingisrealpod.com
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