My Favourite Mistake
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Track:My New Mistake
Nobody's perfect, especially pop stars. A rush of creativity might mean that details get overlooked, and remain uncorrected.Here's a few examples of things gone slightly awry in some of our favourite music. I'm working on a bigger magazine piece along these lines, so if any Mogger has additional suggestions I'd be very interested to hear about them.*DAVID BOWIE : Life On Mars*Turn up the volume for the piano fade-out at the end, and you’ll hear a telephone ringing. It would appear someone left the studio door open…*THE ROLLING STONES : Satisfaction*At the end of each verse, just before the guitar riff comes back in, there is an audible click where Keith Richards puts his foot on an effects pedal.*THE JACKSON FIVE : I’ll Be There*Just before the last chorus, Michael hollers “just look over your shoulders, honey”, when it ought to be “shoulder” singular – unless he’s addressing a contortionist of his acquaintance. Paradoxically, the Oasis album title Standing On The Shoulder Of Giants really should have been pluralised. But wasn’t.*THE JACKSON FIVE : Doctor My Eyes*Not wanting to pick on the poor siblings, but here Jermaine comes in too early on the second verse and ends up repeating its first line.*CARL PERKINS : Blue Suede Shoes*Perkins admitted in later life that his pause between the first line (“Well, it’s one for the money”) and the second (“Two for the show”) was unintentional, but he didn’t have time to go back and correct it – an error that has been lovingly recreated by aspiring rock ‘n’ rollers for a good half-century.*THIN LIZZY : Jailbreak*A lyrical thing here, and it’s bugged me for ages. Phil Lynott opens with the line “tonight there’s gonna be a jailbreak, somewhere in this town”. My guess is that the “somewhere” is most likely to be the jail.*SUEDE : Brass In Pocket*The Pretenders' Chrissie Hynde was impressed with this cover of her band's big hit on a 1992 NME charity album, but was quick to highlight a lyrical error: Brett Anderson sings “been driving, detour leaning” – the actual lyric is “Detroit leaning”.*DR FEELGOOD : Down At The Doctors*At the end of the guitar solo on this 1978 single, vocalist Lee Brilleaux growls “eight bars of piano”, presumably an instruction to the engineer to dub in another instrument at some point in the future. We never did get to hear that piano, though, and Lee’s request was never wiped from the version released commercially.
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