The Beatles were gods among men throughout their musical career, but they still made their fair share of mistakes in the recording studio. For any number of reasons, some of these mistakes were never corrected on the final records -- sometimes because there wasn't time to fix it, sometimes because they didn't care to fix it, and sometimes even because they thought it was funnier to leave the mistake in.
Here are five recorded blunders made by The Beatles in the studio that were left in the final production.
Slow Down
This cover version of the Larry Williams song, sung by John Lennon and released in the UK on the Long Tall Sally EP (later included on the Past Masters Volume One compilation), was humming along quite nicely until the verse that begins, "Well I used to walk you home baby after school, carry your books home, too." The next line should have been, "But now you've got a boyfriend down the street," but if you listen closely, it sounds like John sings, "but now you've got a girlfriend down the street."
Technically, the mistake was made both by John and producer George Martin, each in turn. John's vocal is double-tracked, which means he recorded it twice, and the two were blended together to make the vocal sound more full. The trouble is that, in one vocal take, John sang "now you've got a boyfriend down the street," and in the other vocal take, John sang the alternate lyric (which he sometimes sang in live performances), "now you don't care a dime for me." Put them together and you get: "But now you've got a care friend down the street," which sounds a lot like "But now you've got a girlfriend down the street." Somehow that didn't get caught when the two tracks were edited together.
Thank You Girl
The subject of Ringo Starr's drumming abilities is a never-ending debate. Some say he wasn't very technically adept, others argue that his value was precisely in his ability to find the perfect patterns and fills while not being so flashy as to distract from the song. Wherever you land on that subject, there's a fun little moment at the end of "Thank You Girl" where the band is repeating the "Oh, oh" vamp, punctuated by drum fills.
At about the 1:50 mark, Ringo plays a rather tricky fill that gets just a little bit out of hand and for a messy couple of seconds, the whole band seems to slow down a touch and lose the beat. Thankfully, they were able to rebound quickly and finish out the song.
Too nit-picky for you? Then try listening at around the 54-56 second mark, where John sings "That's the kind of love that is too good to be true," while Paul sings, "That's the kind of love that seems too good to be true."
Let it Be
This one is much more audible and obvious on the single release than it is on the album release, but it exists in both versions. In the final verses, as Paul McCartney sings, "I wake up to the sound of music, Mother Mary comes to me," he plays a very dissonant piano chord on the word "mother," and then corrects it on the next beat.
Usually, Paul takes a very perfectionist approach to his craft, and a mistake like this typically would have been cause for a re-take. However, those who know The Beatles' history know that the Get Back/Let it Be recording sessions were quite tense, and no one was terribly interested in the final recorded material. It was pulled together, edited, and produced much later, when The Beatles were neck-deep in their dissolution, so it's not too hard to see how a mistake like this could have been shrugged off.
Ob-la-di Ob-la-da
Perhaps the most famous mistake in The Beatles' catalog, this one was caught immediately after the recording, and deliberately left in -- partly because they were tired of re-recording it (it took dozens upon dozens of takes because Paul, the perfectionist, was never quite satisfied with his vocal), and partly because they thought it was funny.
The final lyric is supposed to be:
Happy every after in the marketplace
Desmond lets the children lend a hand
Molly stays at home and does her pretty face
And in the evening she still sings it with the band
Paul sings it this way the first time, but on the repeat, he gets the names of his characters wrong so that Molly ends up working in the marketplace, while Desmond stays home putting on makeup for his (apparently) cross-dressing performance with the band. After realizing the mistake, Paul concluded (according to Pete Shotton's book John Lennon: In My Life), "Let's just leave it in -- create a bit of confusion there. Everyone will wonder whether Desmond's a bisexual or a transvestite."
Please Please Me
This was The Beatles' first big hit in the UK, and as the story goes, after finishing the recording, producer George Martin piped in over the studio intercom to tell them, "congratulations, boys, you've just recorded your first number one." However, this was in the days when mono recordings were king, and stereo recordings appealed to a very small part of the population, and so on the stereo version of this song, a very obvious mistake was overlooked and left in the final product.
The last verse, which is simply a repeat of the first verse, is supposed to be: "I know you never even try, girl." Paul sings this correctly, while John accidentally starts to repeat the second verse: "Why do I always have to say, love." The end result is a mish-mash that sounds like "Why do I never even try, girl." John notices the mistake immediately, and so his next sung "come on" is started with a throaty laugh.