Recordings with unintended sounds

[elgecko]

If you listen carefully, you can sometimes hear weird sounds and noises in recordings that were completely unintended. Here are some examples:

Love Rollercoaster - Ohio Players
During the breakdown at 2:33, you can hear what what sounds like a woman screaming. Legend has it that it was recorded in an apartment and someone was actually murdered next door. In reality, it was Billy Beck "doing one of those inhaling-type screeches that Minnie Ripperton did to reach her high note or Mariah Carey does to go octaves above".

Since I've Been Loving You - Led Zeppelin
Bonzo's bass drum pedal can be heard squeaking throughout the whole song.

Low Spark of High Heeled Boys - Traffic
At 4:18 you can hear another part of the song bleeding in. It starts a bit earlier but is most apparent at 4:18. I'm not sure if it's someone's headphones or vestiges of an incompletely erased track.

Someone told me about a telephone ringing in the background of Johnny Cash's Folsom Prison Blues but I could never hear/find it.

What else is out there?

[Tupac]

Roxanne, Sting fell on the piano and laughed.

[elgecko]

I know exactly what you're talking about but I never heard about the origin. Cool!

[Stick_Player]

Originally Posted by elgecko

If you listen carefully, you can sometimes hear weird sounds and noises in recordings that were completely unintended. Here are some examples:

Since I've Been Loving You - Led Zeppelin
Bonzo's bass drum pedal can be heard squeaking throughout the whole song.

Lots of Ringo's squeaky kick pedal (and/or hi hat pedal) in early Beatles' recordings.

[Spectrum]

Supposedly at the end of the Dark Side of the Moon album you can faintly here a Beatles song playing in the background, apparently somebody was listening to it in the next room or something.

[MisterFabulous]

Ok, here goes...

The Beatles 'I Feel Fine' fade-out at the end...sounds like a dog barking?

The Beatles 'Dr. Robert' at the end, John Lennon talking, "I cawn't...(rest is unclear)"

The Who 'Happy Jack' at the end, Pete Townsend saying, "I saw yer!"

[Stev187]

Originally Posted by elgecko

Since I've Been Loving You - Led Zeppelin
Bonzo's bass drum pedal can be heard squeaking throughout the whole song.

He is one of my favorite drummers, but that that bass pedal squeaks on TONS of LZ tracks! It's really noticeable when you listen with headphones. Part of the overall sound, I guess, but it's like listening for a radio announcer to breathe: when you pay attention, it really sticks out!

I think that classic LZ track for this topic is "Black Country Woman," where you hear the engineer and Plant talk about editing out the airplane noise.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Country_Woman

--Steve

[FreshTrooperXBL]

On The Doors' "Five To One" you can hear Jim Morrison taking a swig from his bottle (of presumably whiskey). Crazy how drunk he was, but still a great performance.

[Marial]

Listen to the end of the guitar solo in Sweet Home Alabama. Ronnie used to bring in donuts for himself during recording and one day the band and crew, as I've heard the story, ate them all. You can here him say, 'My donuts! Godd***!'.

[JimK]

Alice Cooper "Be My Lover" outro-
Neil Smith drops his sticks

Roy Buchanan talks about being teh 1st to do a pinched harmonic (he calls it an "overtone"). This is the technique where some flesh & the pick strikes the string (Billy Gibbons does this a lot on "La Grange"). Anyway, Buchanan sez on a tune called "Potato Peelings", he made the mistake & mishit the string. He wanted to do another take but evryone was smiling & said leave it in. So, the record comes out, every guitarist wanted to know how he did it...and so he hadda relearn how he did it.

[gary19702]

Carl Palmer saying "****" in the beginning of the song "the sheriff" after he made a mistake. Only time I think he actually made a mistake lol!

[grifo21]

The entirety of Blood Sugar Sex Magik by the Red Hot Chili Peppers has little nuances like dogs barking and planes flying overhead.

[dinsdal3]

Originally Posted by Spectrum

Supposedly at the end of the Dark Side of the Moon album you can faintly here a Beatles song playing in the background, apparently somebody was listening to it in the next room or something.

i just listened to the last track on my ipod as soon as i read this and i can indeed hear something very faint in the right channel near the end. i cant tell what song it is, all i hear is a violin, but its definitley there!

i read somewhere that the solo on the studio version of master of puppets was messed up but they liked it and still went with it. at the very end you can hear james hit a really high note that you think is intentional but he actually bent the high E past the fingerboard and under the side of the neck but it sounded good so they went with it. its supposedly the wailing note at 4:28

[elgecko]

Originally Posted by gary19702

Carl Palmer saying "****" in the beginning of the song "the sheriff" after he made a mistake. Only time I think he actually made a mistake lol!

LOL! That's part of the song...whenever I sing along, I sing that part too!

[Kuchar1992]

Opening verse of System of a Down's "Cigaro" you can faintly hear door being slammed repeatedly

[yodedude2]

queen's 'one vision' -- give me 'fried chicken' at the end

i believe the print-through (pre-echo?) on led zeppelin's 'whole lotta love' was unintentional

[Mushroo]

Beatles "Long Long Long" has a wine bottle rattling on top of a leslie speaker on the fadeout.

[Chromer]

"Right, lets do the yah yahs now"

At the end of "Go!" by Tones On Tail (included intentionally in the mix, so far as I know, but surely recorded accidentally).