The Beatles released most of their music with clean, pristine production value. Some of their albums were notably messier and a bit rough, but that only added to their charm. That being song, some of The Beatles’ songs feature a blunder or two in terms of production, lyrical mix-ups, and more. Let’s look at six famous mistakes found in The Beatles’ songs!
1. “Her Majesty”
This song closes out Abbey Road beautifully. However, the start of the song starts with quite a jarring, loud guitar. This wasn’t exactly intentional. The song was originally going to be shuffled to Side 2, but Paul McCartney decided otherwise. The album’s engineer John Kurlander was told to scrap the song altogether. He didn’t want to destroy something potentially valuable, so he added “Her Majesty” to the end of a draft mix a few seconds after the very last notes of “The End”. When the band heard the jarring introduction to “Her Majesty”, they actually kind of liked it and decided to keep it in.
2. “Please Please Me”
This track was The Beatles’ very first no. 1 hit in England. “Please Please Me” is notably loose and a little rough around the edges, but again; it added a bit of charm to the legendary band’s earlier works. While doing multiple takes during recording sessions for this song, the tempo was sped up at the request of their producer. The sudden change in tempo resulted in a lyrical flub by John Lennon in the last verse. If you listen closely, you can hear it.
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3. “If I Fell”
This is such a stunning and fairly underrated song by The Beatles, but it’s not without its mistakes. As McCartney sings the higher-pitched harmony, you can hear his voice crack a little bit.
4. “What Goes On”
“What Goes On” features the very first writing credit on a Beatles song for Ringo Starr, though it’s worth noting that Lennon and McCartney put in most of the songwriting work. It’s an odd, delightfully country-sounding little track on Rubber Soul. The band let Lennon go crazy with the rhythm guitar, and you can hear how disorganized his playing is if you listen closely.
5. “Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da”
McCartney famously made the band play this song a bajillion times when they were recording it, so it’s odd that it features a mistake. However, little slip-ups like that make The Beatles’ music all the more interesting. While singing the lyrics for the final verse, McCartney switches up the occupations of Molly and Desmond. It wasn’t intentional, but McCartney decided to leave it in.
6. “Hey Jude”
“Hey Jude” is one of the most famous songs in The Beatles’ discography. It’s a lovely song that McCartney wrote for Julian Lennon that many fans could easily relate to at the time. However, you can hear McCartney use a swear word under his breath around the middle part of the song. Nobody knows why, and McCartney probably doesn’t even remember. But when he starts singing “Then you can start–”, you can hear him mumble the F-bomb under his breath.
Photo by Michael Ochs Archives
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