Four Studio Mistakes That Became Part of Classic Rock History

It's not uncommon to come across a YouTube clip of your favorite classic-rock act in the midst of an on-stage mistake. Stumbles both musical and lyrical are probably inevitable while building a decades-long resume out on the road.

More unusual are those times when a studio flub makes it onto vinyl. Sometimes, a stone-cold rock legend somehow records and releases a track with a very noticeable mishap. The most memorable are part of the following countdown of the Big 4 of Classic Rock Song Screwups.

In narrowing things down, we avoided tracks that never made it onto classic-rock radio playlists. Some lesser-known, though still remarkable recording errors were inevitably left out.

What's the Worst Mistake in a Classic Rock Song?

There was the squeaky shoe that's distinctly heard on the Beatles' album-closing "Day in the Life" from 1967's Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, and Carl Palmer's stray curse word on Emerson Lake and Palmer's "The Sheriff" on Trilogy from 1973.

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A plane actually flew overhead as Led Zeppelin recorded "Black Country Woman" for 1975's Physical Graffiti – and they released it anyway. Same with David Lee Roth's hilariously garbled line from Van Halen's "Everybody Wants Some" on Women and Children First in 1980. Still, only super fans tend to be familiar with deep-cut blunders like those.

So, we focused on songs we've all heard. The following list includes one band's only gold-selling Top 10 smash and another act's breakthrough radio song. There's a Top 5 mainstream rock chart hit from the early-'80s and a track that became an ageless setlist warhorse.

Here's a look back at the Big 4 of Classic Rock Song Screwups:
 
No. 4. The Who, "Eminence Front"
From: It's Hard (1982)
Mistake: Inadvertent stutter

Roger Daltrey rose to fame behind a stuttering performance on "My Generation," but the bad timing on the chorus of the Who's "Eminence Front" was a different matter entirely.

Pete Townshend enters a syllable behind Daltrey at roughly the 2:38 mark, then they appear to sing two different things – both "behind an" and "it's an" – before "eminence front." Engineers attempted to fix it for future reissues, but the best-known version of the song remains the one with the quite obvious fluff.

 
No. 3. Lynyrd Skynyrd, "Sweet Home Alabama"
From: Second Helping (1974)
Mistake: Lost donuts

Legend has it that Ronnie Van Zant cries out for lost donuts during the last minute of Lynyrd Skynyrd's "Sweet Home Alabama." If you listen closely at roughly the 4:10 mark, it certainly sounds like he's saying "My donuts! Goddamn."

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The reasons for such an outburst, if it happened, remain up for debate. In both principal theories, the boys go for take-out during a late-night session. After that, one of Van Zant's bandmates either sits on or swipes his sugary treat while he's doing a vocal take.

Also, his song-opening admonition to "Turn it up!" apparently wasn't a call to arms for Southern rock fans, but rather was directed at an engineer when Van Zant wasn't getting enough sound through his headphones.

 
No. 2. The Police, "Roxanne"
From: Outlandos d'Amour (1978)
Mistake: Piano mishap

"Roxanne" didn't do much upon release in the U.K., but it helped break the Police in America. And it all began with an atonal burst of piano at roughly the 0:04 second mark, then a burst of laughter. Turns out, that's exactly what it sounds like: a huge mistake.

Sting went to sit on a nearby piano at Surrey Sound Studios, unaware that the lid was up. The result was this burst of butt-produced dissonance.

 
No. 1. Pink Floyd, "Wish You Were Here"
From: Wish You Were Here (1975)
Mistake: Accidental cough

Sometimes, a mistake becomes a life-changing moment, and that was apparently the case for David Gilmour during sessions for Pink Floyd's "Wish You Were Here."

While recording the delicate intro lines to this song, Gilmour – then a habitual smoker – let out an accidental cough. They decided to leave it in, correctly surmising that it added to the track's cool ambiance, but Gilmour reportedly vowed to give up cigarettes after hearing the playback.

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