1 of 1- aflem
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Songs With Mistakes Left In
It doesn't happen often, but sometimes you hear an oldie with a mistake in it. And most of them are pretty obvious, so much so that you wonder how it happened.
My favorite example is "I Saw Her Again" by The Mamas & The Papas. There's a part right after the instrumental bridge where Denny Doherty comes in and sings "I saw her -" and then stops, at which point the music starts up again and he returns to the chorus.
According to Wikipedia, "While mixing the record, engineer Bones Howe punched in the coda vocals too early, inadvertently including Denny's false start on the third chorus ("I saw her..."). Despite attempting to correct the error, the miscued vocal could still be heard on playback. Producer Lou Adler liked the effect and told Howe to leave it in the final mix."
Weird, yes, but it works.
Another one that I remember is "Lonely Boy" by Andrew Gold. In the final verse, he sings:
"His sister grew up and she married a man
She gave her a son..."
She gave her a son. Unless this was a lesbian couple, which it wasn't, (the song clearly indicates it was a man) it makes no sense. Why did they leave it that way?
I know John Lennon once talked about the fuzz guitar feedback that starts "I Feel Fine" being discovered by accident, but I believe they did that deliberately on the record.
I wonder if there are any others like those.
Last edited by aflem (July 31, 2023 4:42 pm)
- memphis boy
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Re: Songs With Mistakes Left In
I know John Lennon once talked about the fuzz guitar feedback that starts "I Feel Fine" being discovered by accident, but I believe they did that deliberately on the record.
From all I've read John laid his guitar against the speaker for a tera break and that's when the reverb. He was so amazed he wanted to use it.
- memphis boy
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Re: Songs With Mistakes Left In
tea break
- AzMike
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Re: Songs With Mistakes Left In
That time when a song’s mistake was caught before records were cut/released, fixed, but then another mistake resulted in the first version getting out anyway As the story goes, “When A Man Loves A Woman ” (Percy Sledge) had to be re-recorded due to out of tune horns. But the tapes got mixed up and the first version got released, all the way to #1. It sure sounded good to me on my little transistor radio.
Two other indirect mistakes about this song:
Sledge gave away the writing credits.
Despite the lyrics, it’s played at weddings.
Last edited by AzMike (July 31, 2023 8:38 pm)
- GrimsbyFan
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Re: Songs With Mistakes Left In
Technically this isn't a mistake in the song, but I always thought Jeff Barry and Andy Kim must be embarrassed at the following lyrics in "Baby, Baby How'd We Ever Get This Way" :
Remember how it used to was
Before the roving eye of love
Why does it do the way it does
"How it used to was"??? I realize they were trying to rhyme with "does", but really?
I once heard an interview with Ellie Greenwich and she was discussing "Doo Wah Diddy". She talked about how she was embarrassed when Manfred Mann changed the lyrics from "I knew we were falling in love" to "I knew we was falling in love". She pointed out how she, a college graduate, wrote the song in proper English, but the version of the song that everyone remembers goes "we was falling in love".
Here's the original demo of Doo Wah Diddy, with the correct lyrics, "I knew we were falling in love"
- GrimsbyFan
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Re: Songs With Mistakes Left In
On the B side of My Boyfriend's Back by the Angels was a song titled Love Me Now. For some reason, starting at about the middle of the song and continuing until the end there is the clattering sound of things falling in the background. They cleaned up the track for the album version.
,vid:_9BvV1ZncEI
- GrimsbyFan
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Re: Songs With Mistakes Left In
You can hear Mama Cass talking over the acoustic guitar at the very begiining of Dream A Little Dream Of Me.
- aflem
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Re: Songs With Mistakes Left In
GrimsbyFan wrote:
Technically this isn't a mistake in the song, but I always thought Jeff Barry and Andy Kim must be embarrassed at the following lyrics in "Baby, Baby How'd We Ever Get This Way" :
Remember how it used to was
Before the roving eye of love
Why does it do the way it does
"How it used to was"??? I realize they were trying to rhyme with "does", but really?
I have a similar complaint about the song "Love Of The Common People," the follow-up to "Color Him Father" by The Winstons.
In the song, there's a lyric that states:
"Tears from your little sister
Crying because she doesn't have a dress without a patch
For the party to go"
For the party to go? Hey, I get they wanted to make it rhyme, but twisting the language that way always struck me as bring ridiculous. Still a great song, though.
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Thread Starter- Scotty
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Re: Songs With Mistakes Left In
Well the all time classic is the Kingsmen of course and Louie Louie. Joe Ely starts singing the wrong line , stops and starts again. According to one account I read, the band had hit it pretty hard the night before and were still four sheets to the wind when they recorded it. Joe Ely had the words printed and stuck on wall in front of him but suddenly when he starts singing that line, some one tall stepped in front of him blocking his view. Just adds to the mystery surounding the song and it is shambolic but it works , more so than if it had been perfect. As Richard Dryfuss says as music teacher Mr Holland in Mr Holland's Opus " These guys can't sing, they have no harmonics , they're playing same chords over and over. He then says how much he likes it because it's fun, music is more than notes on a page.
- aflem
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Re: Songs With Mistakes Left In
Speaking of nervy lyrics, Blue Mink did a great song called "Our World" in 1970, but it had one issue for me. They sang:
"Take a look ahead
Don't bury your head
Like an ostrich below."
How do you possibly justify rhyming "head" with "ahead?" It's practically the same word. That's chutzpah.
There's are dozens that would have been better. "Dead," "Red," "Bed," "Stead," "Said," "Shed" "Wed" etc. etc. etc. That lyric has always annoyed me, as if the writer said, "Ah, it's good enough. I can't be bothered thinking of anything else."
No, it isn't. Still love the song, but it always bugs me whenever I hear it.
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Thread Starter- mroldies
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Re: Songs With Mistakes Left In
I can't participate in this discussion because of my poor English. I don't perceive English lyrics so perfectly.
But it is clear to me from the discussion that these are similar errors and imperfections as in the Czech texts...
- Taz
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Re: Songs With Mistakes Left In
For the party to go? Hey, I get they wanted to make it rhyme, but twisting the language that way always struck me as bring ridiculous. Still a great song, though.
Was Yoda listed in the writing credits?
- aflem
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Re: Songs With Mistakes Left In
For the party to go? Hey, I get they wanted to make it rhyme, but twisting the language that way always struck me as bring ridiculous. Still a great song, though.
Was Yoda listed in the writing credits?
Yoda there, he was not. But been, he could have.
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Thread Starter- Lorne
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Re: Songs With Mistakes Left In
I heard Marty Robbins' "Don't Worry" yesterday and immediately thought of this thread. Here's an article about what happened during the recording of this song.
- mroldies
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Re: Songs With Mistakes Left In
I heard Marty Robbins' "Don't Worry" yesterday and immediately thought of this thread. Here's an article about what happened during the recording of this song.
Unfortunately, that link doesn't open for me.
But the guitarist Grady Martin in question also made an instrumental recording called "The Fuzz" in 1961.
- Lorne
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Re: Songs With Mistakes Left In
The article isn't behind a paywall, but you can try accessing it via Clear This Page to see if that works instead.
- mroldies
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Re: Songs With Mistakes Left In
The article isn't behind a paywall, but you can try accessing it via Clear This Page to see if that works instead.
Thanks Lorne, it works. I see that "The Fuzz" I mentioned is listed there...
Last edited by mroldies (August 21, 2023 4:39 pm)
- Lorne
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Re: Songs With Mistakes Left In
Here's another one that I found out about courtesy of Roger Ashby's Oldies Show: "Bad Luck" by Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes. According to the Wikipedia article about this song:
During the recording sessions, [session drummer Earl] Young's hi-hat was so loud that it could not be quieted in the final mix. The 2004 book A House on Fire: The Rise and Fall of Philadelphia Soul credits this recording error for influencing disco to include loud hi-hats.
Personally, I would look at the loud hi-hat more as being something that was unintended rather than an outright error, but I thought it was worth adding to this thread anyway. I've always thought that "Bad Luck" is a great record in every respect, and had no idea that there was an aspect of it that was originally considered to be a problem.