I’m sorry, this is incorrect. There has never been a version of “Revolver” where “Taxman” had a false start. There have been some foreign compilations where they snipped the front off so that it starts at the first bass note. But that countdown was recorded specifically to edit onto the beginning of the song, because they actually did start at the first bass note. (Source: Lewisohn)
Hmmm. I know the Pixies “Live at the BBC” has an incident during ‘Is she weird’ where Kim Deal must have popped a Bass String because she says quote out loud: “oh FUCK!”. Of corse that is a ‘live’ album.
I liked ELO in one song on “Secret Messages” where the lead in goes like this:
Sounds of tuning, cymbal tapping
“OK? Everyone? On four… FOUR!” (music starts.)
I’ve always thought that the idea was to make the band seem less polished like some top-40 processed singer with McBand.
He’s laughing because it’s the first time in multiple takes that he didn’t say “Dr. Zeus”.
Of course, there is Jimi Hendrix messing up the lyrics to “All Along the Watchtower”, flubbing the “none of us living along this line know what any of this is worth” line.
Jeff Beck messing up the “double trackled” guitar solo on “Hi Ho Silver Lining”
Bob Dylan almost cracks up in “All I Really Want To Do” and there’s a song on Nasville Skyline (“To Be Alone With You”??) where he asks at the start "Is It Rollin’ Bob? (to Bob Johnsone)
The Who’s “Happy Jack” ends with Townshend shouting at Keith Moon “I seen ya!” because Moon, who was a hopeless singer, had been trying to crack up the rest of the band during the recording of the backing vocals by hiding in the studio and popping up unexpectetdly
On one of the tracks on Astral Weeks (Slim Slo Slider??) you can hear a music stand being knocked over
And there are any number of “clams” blown by jazz musicians which are left on final takes because to edit the track would destory it as an organic whole.
mm
I wasn’t counting that stuff as an error, it’s clearly deliberate. I can’t find any reference to the false start on Wikipedia or the AllMusic Guide, so I either misread or misremembered something. (Or maybe someone else did and fixed their mistake. ;))
Towards the end of ‘Heroin’ on the first Velvet Underground record, the drumming stops for no apparent reason - according to Moe Tucker (the drummer), she couldn’t hear anything over the noise of the screeching viola, and stopped, assuming that the rest of the band would stop too, and they would redo it. Instead, they used that take.
The sudden feeling of disorientation caused by the beat dropping out actually adds to the feeling of the song, and a lot of people would say that the band made the right decision to leave it like that, but on the other hand, the live versions where the drums pound throughout have an extra power missing on the LP version.
Also, strangely, there’s someone coughing clearly in the background on ‘Who Loves The Sun’ from the last Velvets album ‘Loaded’ - I’ve never seen it mentioned anywhere, either.
Thanks, Marley. I know I’ve still got that album stashed away. The cross is made with a dollar bill.
Amazing album.
At the end rather than the beginning:
Led Zep, “In my Time of Dying” (Physical Graffiti) — cough at end, silly guitar riff & laughing, then Bonham saying “That’s gotta be the one” or some such thing.
I don’t know if it’s a “bad take” per se, but I’ve heard that they hadn’t planned the ending at any rate.
Isn’t there anothe Zep song where Plant flubs a line- Misty Mountain Hop myabe?
On ELO’s Rockaria! the opera singer starts with a few notes, stops and starts again. I’ve always wondered why they kept it.
Jethro Tull - Baker Street Muse.
Flubs take 1, “shit”, “shit”, take 2 proceeds fine.
One that sounds extremely rehearsed is on Janet Jackson’s “Runaway.” Towards the end of the song, she sings, “And I just know we’ll have a good time,” gets off pitch at the end of the phrase, and says, “Ooo, didn’t quite hit the note - that wasn’t such a good time.” I hate that.
Even worse, though, is on Rufus Wainwright’s “Harvester of Hearts.” At the very end of the song, he says, “That’s all you’re getting tonight” and does this ridiculously unnatural, super-irritating laugh. I feel ashamed for him whenever I forget to skip to the next track before the song’s over. And I love him so!
At the end of Tori Amos’ “She’s Your Cocaine,” she says, “Cut it again.” This one doesn’t really bother me, but it’s still kinda dumb.
“In a Goddadavida baby, don’t you know that I love you”
Another R.E.M. studio flub is their drunken, spontaneous version of “King of the Road” on Dead Letter Office, in which it takes them a while to figure out what key they’re in.
Not necessarily a bad take, but on the song “Rearrange” by God Lives Underwater, you hear two voices say:
“Even if you mess up, it’s still alright.”
“Okay.”
And then the music kicks in.
I always think of Immigrant Song. At the end of the song, Plant starts the line “So now you better stop…” just a hair early and says,“Ss…So now you better stop…”
Joe
Now that you mention it, he does do that! (Haven’t heard that song in years and never consciously identified it as a flub, but my sound-memory is good enough to remember that part.)
The person laughing (and the person talking on The Cough Song) was Bob Johnson, the producer. In some of the bootlegs you can also hear him say the track number before the song.
If you read one of the books that describe Dylan’s sessions, you’ll find that he’s never been a stickler for perfection. He stumbles over lines on lots of songs, including “Like a Rolling Stone.” He probably gets some of the lyrics wrong too, but he changes lyrics so often its hard to tell what’s intentional and what’s mistakes.
As for flubbing things, in the 1964 Carnegie Hall Concert bootleg he forgets the words a couple of times - though the liner notes say he had a bottle of vodka, I think, just before so he’s looser than on any recorded concert I’ve heard.
There is also the barely audible cough at the very beginning of “Whole Lotta Love”.
I came in here specifically to mention this, but I’ve always wondered whether or not it was actually intentional. The plea just sounds so desperate, and they start the song despite his protests:
“What key is this in? Wait…WAIT! What key is it in??”