A little parlor game...strange sounds heard on recordings

[Beagle]

Inspired by TP, I thought we could list some odd sounds heard on recordings that may or may not have been meant to be heard...

Goats Head Soup, on "Angie" there are voices in the background. And on "Star Star", on my original American LP, on the "naughty" line, they overdubbed another line from the song "that's what I call obscene" so the listener would have difficulty hearing the bad "p"word. On subsequent issues, the line is not "censored" in this manner.

On "Sugar Daddy" from "Fleetwood Mac", there is the sound of a car, and also a thud about 3/4 the way through.

And yes, there is the sound of a bus on Running On Empty (side 2, track 3) but they tell you that on the back cover...


These are quite obvious. How 'bout some not so obvious ones.

Disclaimer: I accept no responsibility for people who injure themselves tripping over things rushing to their record collection.

[Jimbo]

Get out your copy of "Rumours" and cue up "The Chain." Turn it up really, really loud and listen for somebody (Lindsey?) whisper the f-word, just before the music starts. It's there!

Another favorite: In "Yummy Yummy Yummy" by the Ohio Express, you can hear a woman groaning in ecstasy, layered over the instrumental riff. Somehow, I missed that listening to the 45 when I was 10 years old!

[John Carsell]

Right Place, Wrong Time by Dr. John.

Listen to the into with headphones...Somebody had a cough during that session.

(source the MFSL 2fer CD)

[the 801]

Believe it or not, you can hear a telephone ringing on Led Zeppelin's 'The Ocean'! I don't remember exactly where, but cue it up, crank it and hear for yourself...

[Uncle Al]

Try this rather extensive site of Beatle Bloopers:


What Goes On (http://www.pootle.demon.co.uk/wgo.htm)

[lbangs]

There's background talking on tons of Beach Boys songs. Here Today from Pet Sounds stands out in my mind.

Shalom, y'all!

L. Bangs

[Matt]

"Rocklists" says that you can hear a soda machine dispensing a can of pop on one of Elvis's Sun recordings.

[Dan C]

Well, these aren't mistakes actually, but I have a couple.

REM's classic 'Murmur'. The song 'We Walk' has that mysterious banging sound. It's a billiards table downstairs in the studio. They put a mic in the stairwell and sped the tape up, played it back slow. No reason, it just 'worked'. Fabulous! I love that album sooo much.

And in Simon and Garfunkel's 'Bridge Over Troubled Water', on the 'So Long, Frank Lloyd Wright' song, after the repeats near the end Paul Simons says "So long, already". I always heard it, but never figured out what it was until I read about it somewhere.

On XTC's album 'Skylarking', on 'Sacraficial Bonfire' there's a pause near the end, right before the acoustic guitar comes in, you can hear a man's voice. Very hard to pick up. Maybe it was a cue or something.

Give me time and I'll think up some real boo boo's.
Dan C

[ArneW]

1) I have an early digital recording with Guennadi Rozhdestvensky conducting the London Symphony Orchestra (Tchaikovsky's 5th symphony, I think) where I always noticed something of a hum for about 3 seconds or so in a very light passage. I was shocked when I listened to it for the first time very loud through my Stax headphones: It's actually the recording engineer talking to Maestro Rozhdestvensky over the latter's headphones. You can't fully understand what he's saying but it's something like "I'm okay with the woodwinds, just go on". It's hard to believe that something like this can go unnoted, but it's all up to their monitoring equipment, I guess!

2) On the famous Boston Pops/Fiedler Gershwin recording (Chesky reissue from the 1980s) you get the impression that they left a studio window open: You actually feel when the traffic light turns green and big V8 Cadillacs rush through the streets of New York. I love it.

3) On the CD issues of "Frank Sinatra and Antonio Carlos Jobim" Frank is overdubbing himself several times on "I Concentrate On You". I bet the remastering engineer thought it was Jobim singing "Dabadabadaba", but it's Frank! Am I right, Steve?

Arne

[Steve Hoffman]

Originally posted by ArneW

On the CD issues of "Frank Sinatra and Antonio Carlos Jobim" Frank is overdubbing himself several times on "I Concentrate On You". I bet the remastering engineer thought it was Jobim singing "Dabadabadaba", but it's Frank! Am I right, Steve?

Arne

Arne,

There is no overdubbing on the Jobim/Sinatra stuff. That's just Frank burbling into the mic. It was mixed out but probably leaked into another mic.

[ArneW]

SH wrote:

There is no overdubbing on the Jobim/Sinatra stuff. That's just Frank burbling into the mic. It was mixed out but probably leaked into another mic.

I have to listen to that right now. I always had the impression that he is singing and burbling at the same time, then. ;)

Arne

[Steve Hoffman]

What he is doing, is actually imitating Jobim, trying to burble like he does.

I'm so used to hearing an "all microphones up" mix of this great album, that I forget that most of his "ad-lib" stuff was mixed out of the final two-track (now decomposed).

[ArneW]

What does «now decomposed» mean? Are you implying that my original Sinatra/Jobim stereo pressing is indeed a keeper?

Arne

[spot1019]

I love these. One of my favs was on
the Chain, but that was posted already. Others are

The Police - Message in a Bottle, you hear a tongue click at a few different parts. I think the
first is after the first time Sting sings the "message in a bottle" line.

Beatles - All I've got To Do
Led Zep - All My Love
On both of these you can hear the drum pedal squeak with each kick. More evident on the Beatles. Once you hear this it'll drive you crazy !

Beach Boys - California Girls, on Steve's great Endless Summer master you can hear the boys breathing and gigling a bit during the opening, right as the song speeds up and that carnival like organ comes in. Also on Don't Worry Baby, there's a lot of open mic breathing during the intro.

[Patrick M]

Originally posted by spot1019
Led Zep - All My Love

On both of these you can hear the drum pedal squeak with each kick. More evident on the Beatles. Once you hear this it'll drive you crazy !

Are you thinking of Since I've Been Loving You? It could be on both, but I've always heard about the pedal squeak in SIBLY.

[Humorem]

Originally posted by Beagle
Inspired by TP...

On "Sugar Daddy" from "Fleetwood Mac", there is the sound of a car...

That's the sugar daddy, driving around in his big car!
TP

[Matt]

Originally posted by Dan C
And in Simon and Garfunkel's 'Bridge Over Troubled Water', on the 'So Long, Frank Lloyd Wright' song, after the repeats near the end Paul Simons says "So long, already". I always heard it, but never figured out what it was until I read about it somewhere.

I thought it was "So long, Artie," as in "goodbye, Mr. Garfunkel." Not to be taken too literally, though; I don't think Simon & Garfunkel were set to part ways at that time.

Speaking of breathing, though, I was listening to Springsteen's re-recording of "The Promise," and towards the end, after he sings his last words, you hear him exhale (like he's sighing in resignation). Very effective, considering the rest of the performance and what the song means.

[Humorem]

Originally posted by Dan C
And in Simon and Garfunkel's 'Bridge Over Troubled Water', on the 'So Long, Frank Lloyd Wright' song, after the repeats near the end Paul Simons says "So long, already". I always heard it, but never figured out what it was until I read about it somewhere.


Nevermind....
TP

[Pinknik]

I never heard The Beatles saying "arm" "foot" and "leg" after "Molly let's the children lend a hand" from OBLADI-OBLADA, for years having listened to it countless times until I read about it in THe Beatles Recording Sessions book by Mark L.

[Highway Star]

Guitarist Duane Eddy was telling some of us over at the Gretsch Discussion Pages (poor guy wanted to be one of the guys so we got him his own forum there) about some of his recordings in the early days when he was using this echo chamber (a 2000 gallon water tank) and the engineers would have to chase birds off of it so they wouldn't end up in the recordings. The studio was close to the street and they would have to stop taping when fire trucks would go buy and things like that. His forum there is "Duane Eddy's House O' Twang" and the particular thread is titled "Stalkin" at http://www.gretschpages.com/

I go by 10ahcn over there (yes, I have multiple personalities)

[srigby]

My favorite is in the song Fingertips Part II by Stevie Wonder. One of the musicians appears to have forgotten what key the song is being played in and you can hear he saying "What Key. What Key"? as the song continues to play.

[Matt]

Probably got lost in the shuffle when Stevie refused to exit the stage and went right on playing on his harmonica. Great single...

[Jimbo]

On both of these you can hear the drum pedal squeak with each kick. More evident on the Beatles. Once you hear this it'll drive you crazy !


A couple more squeaky drum pedals:

The intro to Stevie Wonder's classic Superstition.

The Searchers Needles and Pins.

[Patrick M]

How about the rain in "Could This Be Magic"?

Intentional or not? I dunno.

Other neat sounds on Van Halen records:

the horn from an Opel, Eddie's Lamborghini revving, a beer can being scraped across the strings, and the riff from "Top of the World" originally appeared on 1984

[NealW]

something that i always wondered about was the snoring/grunting on "for your life" on Zep's album Presence. it happens about halfway into the song.

what was that all about???