Can you list songs where a mistake was intentionally left in?

"Wipe Out"--Surfaris, long version, they go totally off the beat, heh...

The notable "New York Mining Disaster": clearly Mr. JONES at the very end on the mono mix but the stereo is "Joee....."

The celeste(or whatever it is)played during the intro of the Cyrkle's "Turn-Down Day"--so obvious someone tripped over their fingers, mono or stereo...

 

LOL....I cant believe nobody mentioned the STEREO version of Bobby Fullers "I Fought The Law"....

Listen to Bobbys vocal ....he clear as day, says..."I Miss My Baby and A Good F$%K"!!! You can really only hear it on the stereo version, tho.....

 

And how about the TERRIBLE, Sax solo on "Angel Baby"

really bad Sax note on the alternate "Surf Rider"

 

Van Halen, Everybody Wants Some. Near the end, when Dave is ad-libbing over the cave man drumming....he says "I like..." only to be squashed by the guitar and bass.....he pauses for a sec....THEN says " I like the way the line runs up the back of the stocking".

 

I'm surprised no one has mentioned the Who's Happy Jack. urban legend and otherwise reputable sources say someone pulled a face during the recording of the final chorus in an effort to get Keith Moon to screw up/crack up. that's supposedly the inspiration for his "I saw yer!" at the end of the song.

my favorite though is the one on Should I Stay or Should I Go by the Clash. Joe Ely (who sang background on the track) and Joe Strummer were lurking out of sight when Mick Jones was laying down the lead vocal.

the Joes figured they'd jump out at some point and scare Mick. when they did, Mick looked at them and yelled, "Split!" that exclamation stayed on the record and became the introduction to the neat little guitar break in the middle of the song.

on the same song, Joe Strummer became inspired and thought it'd be cool to mix up the shout and response with a Spanish translation. someone knew someone who had an Ecuadoran housekeeper, so they got her on the phone and she provided the peculiar Latino translations that fill in the background. more than one person who speaks Spanish (I don't) has told me the responses sung by the two Joes really don't make much sense.

just one more reason why I love the Clash so much.

note: I've read all of the above on the Internet, so it has to be true.

 

On several Grateful Dead songs the vocals seem to be a tiny bit off key. Also, the drummer (s) have a little trouble keeping the proper time. I'm sure these mistakes were intentional.

 

On The Beatles' "Hey Jude," John Lennon exclaimed "Ohhh, f___" in between the "Remember to let her under your skin" and "Then you begin . . . " -- you only hear the "Ohhh -- ".

 

A couple more 'punch-in' errors that made it to the final master:

Mamas & The Papas 'Creeque Alley': After the line 'California Dreamin' is becoming a reality', 4 bars later you hear the final syllable 'tee', as if maybe they had changed a line and moved the aformentioned phrase up a bit and punched out the track just a tad early.

Simon & Garfunkel 'The Boxer': Near the very end of the song after the final 'li-li-li' chorus, you hear a faint pop followed by a fading heavily reverberated 'I' sound...

-Aaron

 

I think this was a mastering error. On the LP and RCA CD, there's not that gap between the bass's count-in and the start of the song. What that half-second of silence is doing on the MFSL disc, I have no idea.

 

It sounds to me like he's just tapping the sticks together after doing the roll that sets up the big finish. You could be right, though.

 

I'm sure they were doing their best to keep in tune and in time, it just seldom worked out that way.

 

On the 4:31 version of Donovan's "Sunshine Superman," at 2:28, the lead vocal goes "'cause I made my mind up, you're going to be mine..." while the backing vocal goes "'cause I made my mind up, for..." as in "forever to be mine" from the previous refrain. I'm not sure if this was a mistake, but it sure sounds like it.

 

That is absolutely true. "Polly" is actually the original band demo, recorded in Madison, Wisconsin in 1990, the only cut on Nevermind that wasn't recorded in L.A. in 1991. Chad Channing is the drummer on the cut(recorded before Dave Grohl joined), but didn't get credit.

Evan

 

Dunno if live recordings count, but Ringo totally forgets the lyrics to "It Don't Come Easy" on The Concert for Bangla Desh album. "Hmm-hmm-hm-hm-hmm, hm-hm-hm-hm-hm-hm-hm, and you know it don't come easy..."

The Monkees' "Gonna Buy Me a Dog" is just one flub after another, as Mickey and Davy trade jokes and try to crack each other up, but that's the whole point of the song.

 

"We were in Electric Lady...and the tape operator...His family was from Ecuador. I was really getting into my Spanish speaking...I wondered what Mick's lyric would look like in Spanish. So I..thought - I couldn't translate it! It was beyond my amigo-lingo. And the guy from Ecuador said "Hey, hold on", He called his mother from Brooklyn. we read her the lyric down the phone and she shouted back to me saying from her kitchen, so I just wrote down exactly what his mother said." - Strummer

 

There's always Rod Stewart coming in to early on "Every Picture Tells A Story": "loo ... look how wrong you can be."

 

Revolution - The Beatles

John's backing vocals ("alright") came in at the wrong time. Left in to give it a live feel.

Brian

 

The story actually goes like this.....
Keith Moon liked to sing, although he had a voice that was not to the standard of Roger, Pete or John. He ruined take after take of Happy Jack by singing along with the band, so in the end he was made to sit in the control room. He kept escaping and creeping into the studio and popping up in front of any microphone and singing at the very end of the track. After the sixth or seventh take ruined because everyone was laughing at Keith's antics, Kit lambert made him promise to lie down in the control room, behind the glass, so nobody could see him. The band wass playing the number through, wondering if Keith could resist the temptation to appear again and finally at the very last bars, he popped his head up over the console again, causing Pete to exclain "I saw ya!"

 

I always thought this story was funny. A freind of mine who's a banjo player really messed up a solo on a live album. And was really peeved when it was released. But found it funny when he ran into other pickers who'd learned his licks off the record, including all the mistakes!

 

I could be wrong on this but here goes...

A friend played me a lo-fi live version of the song, and in that instance, the ad-libbing of the forgotten lyrics sounds more genuine. She seems to be singing the "alternate" lyrics more spontaneously, because she's also stifling some laughs. When I heard a hi-fi version (the single version, I presume), the alternate lyrics sound like they've been performed a few times. I even think Frank Sinatra used her ad-libs in his performances of the song, adding her to the list of singers.

 

What's funny about that, is I remember reading a review where the critic singles that out as the best example of her "preference" for scat singing!

 

I always thought that was intentional. Sort of like a twist on the lyric.I could be wrong.

 

From what I've read, Paul realized the lyric was wrong after they finished one of the innumerable takes of the song (and this was a remake!), but realizing how sick the other three were of performing a song they weren't wild about, Paul decided to leave it as is.

 

Interesting, I have not heard that before. But it makes sense the way paul would have the band do his songs over and over again.Thanx for the info Joel.