What are some mistakes that were left in songs? Do you have a favorite?

favrion@beehaw.org to Music@beehaw.org – 23 points –
29

I don’t think that it’s a mistake or unintentional per se, but I love when songs leave talking in, or laughter. It’s just nice.

I fucking hate this. How can you like that?

For me, it gives an air of authenticity

I guess I think it’s cute! It reminds me that the people recording it are in a room having fun. I also really like surprising, weird little moments in my music, even (especially ?) if they break the expected flow of the song. I get why it would be jarring to some, I loooove that shit though.

You can hear a telephone ring in the background of The Ocean by Led Zeppelin.

I always wondered what was up with that

The lead in to Good Riddance by Green Day is messing up the opening twice in a row. He even swears after the second fuck up.

I always thought it was a deliberate part of the track, but the internet insists it was a genuine double mistake and f-bomb from Billie Joe. Nice!

Every time I play this song live, I do it with the "...fuck"

Just a tad before 3 minutes into 'Hey Jude', you can hear someone deep in the mix say, "Oh, bloody hell".

I never heard that one before! Is it two people? Sounds to me like Paul saying 'Oh!' then John mumbling 'bloody hell.'

It isn’t really special, but there’s the bit in Bohemian Rhapsody where Roger Taylor’s high backing vocal is a bit longer than everyone else’s. I’m pretty sure that was a mistake that was left in, possibly because they couldn’t take it out with the tech they had back then.

couldn’t take it out with the tech they had back then.

I’ve heard that they nearly lost the recording because their tape machine had a minor flaw which scraped away some of the tape and which nearly ate the whole tape because of how much multi track overdubbing they were doing.

I think you’re right, that does sound familiar. Could you imagine accidentally destroying the tapes for BR?!

Yea they apparently realised rather late when the tape was close to destroyed.

I love the mis-fretted note in Stairway to Heaven at 3:30. Can't unhear it and love that it's never been dubbed out in all the various remasters etc.

I’ve listened a few times but I don’t hear it.

It's on the 2-and of the bar (the ascending arpeggio). Think the note is an E

Edit - on the 1-and. The lead in is beat 4 of the previous bar. So it's the 4th note of the arpeggio

In the beginning of Roxanne from the Police, Sting accidentally sat on a piano, and you hear the butt chord and laughter.

Mines a funny one because it probably doesn’t exist.

When young I was in a band that did a cover of Fire by Hendrix. And while practicing it along with the recording I would sware that there were moments where Mitch Mitchell went out of time for a beat or so. I never nailed down where it would happen because I was just trying to learn the song, but it felt pretty real though transient. It was probably me, but it would make total sense given the time and the nature of the song. Tempo changes are pretty common for instance for that time.

On 'Cotton Crown' by Sonic Youth, Thurston Moore and Kim Gordon sing 'You got your cotton crown' multiple times at the end. Gordon accidentally sings it one too many times and trails off, like, 'You got your cott — uh'.

In 'Maxwell's Silver Hammer', on the second verse Paul McCartney laughs while singing the word 'writing', reportedly because John Lennon mooned him from the control booth. Another Beatles one is on 'What Goes On' when Ringo Starr sings 'Tell me why' and you can hear Lennon shout 'We already told you why!', presumably in reference to their earlier song 'Tell Me Why', which Starr also sang.

There's a really famous one on Nirvana's cover of 'The Man Who Sold the World'. At the beginning of the guitar solo, Kurt Cobain misses the note then overcorrects and misses it again, but it's a surprisingly musical-sounding error. I doubt he'd have dubbed it regardless!

In radiohead's Creep when the first verse shifts to the first chorus, the guitar is supposed to start playing during the chorus. But the guitarist apparently didn't like how quiet the first verse was so he played the first 3 notes a little bit early to surprise everybody. Some also say he was probably just checking the volume on the amp. It's not completely clear what his intentions were. But they left it in the final recording and even played it like that live.

On Dream on (Aerosmith), I've always wondered if the couple "missing" notes from the arpeggio in 2:33 are intentional or a mistake.

I think that may be intentional for crunchy harmony.

At the end of Streetlight Manifesto's "Keasbey nights" when one of them says "it fucking stinks in here!"