"Ultimate Guitar"has a list of songs with mistakes made during the recordingthat were kept IN the songs, because somebody liked them. There are seven on the list. They are:
1. "Black Country Woman",Led Zeppelin. They were recording at a house, and just as they started, a plane flew overhead. They decided to leave the plane noise in. You can even hearRobert Plantsaying, "Nah, leave it."
(Here's thesong. It's at the very beginning.)
"Roxanne",The Police. At the beginning, you can hear a cluster of keyboard notes followed bySting'slaugh. He accidentally sat onakeyboard.
(Here's thesong. It's four seconds in. It fits so well that it could've been intentional . . . but it wasn't.)
3. "Wish You Were Here",Pink Floyd. David Gilmourcoughs and can be heard breathing right before the main guitar comes in. Rumor has it that he couldn't hold in a cough due to his heavy smoking . . . and he was so upset when he heard the final take that he quit cold turkey the following day.
(Here's thesong. The cough is 27 seconds in, the breathing follows.)
4. "I Saw Her Again",The Mamas and the Papas. They did a lot of layered vocals, but the repeated "I saw her . . . I saw her" at the beginning of the third verse was a mistake in the editing. They liked it, so they kept it.
(Here's thesong. You can hear it at the 2:47 mark. And here'svideoof the sound guy telling the story.)
5. "Louie Louie",The Kingsmen. Someone drops an F-bomb in the background about a minute into the song, supposedly because the vocalist came in too early.
(Here's theUNCENSOREDsong. The F-bomb is 54 seconds in. You can barely hear it, and wouldn't know that it was the F-word without being told . . . but now that you know.)
6. "Steven's Last Night in Town",Ben Folds Five. They were recording it in a house, and toward the end of the song, you can hear a phone ringing. But since it sounded like it fit, it was left in.
(Here's thesong. You can hear it at the 2:56 mark.)
7. "Bar Lights",Whiskeytown. Ryan Adamsforgot his line, started laughing,Caitlin Carystarted laughing, and Ryan broke a string all in one bad moment . . . and they STILL used that take.
(Here's theUNCENSOREDsong. Skip to the 2:35 mark. As the song fades out, Ryan explains what happened. That's at the 3:30 mark, but be careful, he drops the F-word at that point.)
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