I’m stunned at all these mistakes that I’ve never found in songs I’ve listened to hundreds of times.
No. Right song, wrong moptop. Paul says it.
While I’m here, I heard one of my favorites just this afternoon: Stones “Yesterday’s Papers”… Brian hits a clam on the marimba about halfway through.
On the original Broadway cast album of West Side Story (from 1957), right as Reri Grist begins the solo for “Somewhere”, there’s a click like something being switched on. (Maybe her mike?) You can hear it at about :04 here.
Hey, that guy was learning/ teaching himself to play instruments left and right, in between being high and having lots of sex and being depressed some of the time. Give the guy a break! 
Someone mentioned the drums/tambourine rhythmic mess in “I’m Free”. How about the awfully out-of-tune guitars! Especially jarring at the last chord. (But a great song anyway).
One more from the Fabsters: During the first refrain of “Rain,” Paul on bass and Ringo on drums get confused and add an entire two beats to a measure – probably in part because of the slow way John sings the lyrics. But it all sorts out just fine, and just adds to the dreaminess of the masterpiece. The sheet music actually includes this as an extra half-measure, so SOMEONE thought it was on purpose – or at least worth preserving in print!
You be preaching to the choir, Brother or Sister. Between The Buttons has been my favorite Stones album since 1967, in very large part because of Brian.
(Blathering) My lesser favorites, in no particular order are Some Girls, Aftermath, and Now!
Agreed on all counts… And I’d add Get Yer Ya-Yas Out, from the Mick Taylor era.
So what’s the basis for calling it a mistake?
Good question. Musicologist Alan Pollack calls it this in his masterful online analysis (which covers every Beatles song – get ready to do nothing but enjoy this for about a week!), and I guess I just trusted his expert opinion. I’ll bet his reasoning is mostly about the fact that the extra half-measure does not appear in the other verses. Maybe he’s also read an interview with one of the Beatles (or with George Martin, or Geoff Emerick) where they characterized it as a mistake they decided to keep.
Fair enough. I’m familiar with some of the clear mistakes that did get left in Beatles records, but I don’t recall noticing what was going on with “Rain.”
There’s only one other place where it would appear, as there is only one other verse that transitions into a refrain. The presence of the two beats before one refrain and not the other may or may not be as the Beatles played it–it could also have been an edit. It’s also worth noting that there is another point in the song where a two-beat measure is played: the intro.
The idea that this was a mistake occasioned by Lennon’s vocal delivery doesn’t make much sense, since the instrumental track would have been recorded before the vocal. (Since the instrumental and vocal parts on the finished record were recorded at different speeds, they couldn’t possibly have been recorded at the same time.)
Interesting thoughts, Biffy! Sounds plausible to me. Even Pollack can be wrong sometimes (and he’s very much open to others’ suggestions).
Here’s an example of a mistake where we know for sure the songwriter decided to keep it because he liked it: the Beach Boys’ I’m Waiting for the Day. In the Pet Sounds Sessions CDs released 15 years ago, we hear the session musician play a plunky melody on some stringed instrument (can’t remember – ukulele, maybe?) during the end of the first line of the first verse. Brian Wilson had written out that the musician should play something there – not sure exactly what – but what the musician actually played had a rhythm that didn’t fit well with the rest of the music. In the recording sessions, we hear the song stop, the musician says something like “sorry, I screwed up…that sounded bad,” and Brian says something like, “No, man, that was outta sight! Play it just the way you played it!”. And then Brian sings that melody, so we know he really did like what he’d heard.
That was Al de Lory on harpsichord.
Thanks. Maybe you’re right, but I’m thinking it was ukulele, which would make it Lyle Ritz (acc. to Wikipedia).
Here’s a cool breakdown of that session. I think wiki might have it wrong. Ritz played standup bass on that song (along with two other Wrecking Crew bass players). He may have played his uke, as well, but I really think those uke-sounding bits are actually keyboards.
BTW - I had the pleasure of attending a Lyle Ritz ukulele performance given to a crowd of about twenty at a guitar shop about ten years ago - The man’s a genius.
Ignorance fought, thanks – and lucky you!
In the original filming of the concert on the roof by the Beatles, the guitar work on Get Back is completely wonky.
In the film everyone usually sees, and on the disk recording, the performance is different.
I was pissed when I noticed that. I’m sure there are people with the details on what went down.
George had amp problems. Pretty much all of the guitar you hear on that take is John. With two guitars the rough edges disappear.
i.e. “Runnin’ With The Devil” Mutant Version
The Van Halen I version goes: first verse, chorus, second verse, chorus, first guitar solo, third verse (same words as second verse, but sung slightly different), chorus, second guitar solo, chorus with staccato bass, end.
The mutant version goes: first verse, chorus, first guitar solo, third verse, chorus, second guitar solo, chorus with staccato bass, second verse, chorus, end.
Oh, there is so much more to that story. This was recorded live during a review show, where everyone just did a few songs. At the pause you can here the stage announcer say 'Let’s hear it for Little Stevie Wonder" because that was supposed to be the end of his set. During that time, his band was hustling off stage, and the band for the next act, The Marvelettes was coming on.
Stevie, being a great performer, feeds off the audience and kicks back into the song. Of course, Stevie being blind perhaps didn’t know that some new musicians were now on stage. The bass player (either Joe Swift of Larry Moses depending on the source) frantically called out “What key, what key?” The piano player plays a quick run to get people into the right key. The amazing part is that the band - a mix of the core show band and the Marvelettes guys - nail the hell out of the ending of the song.
Ah, that makes a whole lot more sense! I couldn’t figure out why the band would have all of a sudden forgotten the key–it’s not like the key modulates in the ending.