Merry Christmas! Here's a festive gift marking 40 years since Paul McCartney's Pipes of Peace video, which recreates the 1914 Christmas Day truce on the Western Front of World War 1. How was this video turned around fast enough to be aired on the BBC six days after shooting? Has Paul got the acting bug after spending half of 1983 shooting Give My Regards to Broad Street? Does his decision to play both the English and the German soldier lend a sense of shared humanity and emphasise the futility of war? (Seriously, stay with us here.) And why hasn't the song endured as a peace anthem in the last 40 years, in the way that Give Peace a Chance has?

We used a clip of the charity record He Ain't Heavy, He's My Brother by The Justice Collective in this episode, and so we've made a donation to The Hillsborough Survivors Support Alliance. You can donate here if you'd like to: https://www.gofundme.com/f/1qf2s20740

Thanks so much for listening in 2023. We've loved making these podcasts and we're very grateful for all the positive feedback we get. If you've enjoyed any of them, we'd really appreciate it if you gave us a five-star rating in your podcast app. It helps people find us. See you again in 2024.

• Watch the Pipes of Peace video: https://youtu.be/B3q4Up5ugTc
• Paul McCartney and George Martin being interviewed at the AIR Studios mixing desk by Russell Harty, 14 December 1983: https://youtu.be/xabqb5Y6Mg0
• All Together Now by The Farm: https://youtu.be/iRgtzZ-mOQo
• He Ain't Heavy, He's My Brother by The Justice Collective, featuring a guitar and a vocal line by Paul: https://youtu.be/Ye4cELYLzJM
• Paul McCartney performing Freedom: https://youtu.be/zFFLlpC9f9Q

Meet the Beatles Films Podcast

The Beatles Films Podcast is hosted by Matt Looker and Ed Williamson. We're both film writers and Beatles fans. Between us we've written for TheShiznit.co.uk, Total Film, Den of Geek and Virgin Media.

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