Ticket 72 Playlist: Embrace Your Mistakes

In order to better understand the influence of ideas on and by the Beatles songs are laid out in chronological order. Songs known to have an influence on the Beatles are in italics.

This page is a work in progress. Errors? Typos? Suggestions? Did I miss an example? Leave a comment below!

For more on this songwriting tip go here

1960 Mack the Knife (Ella In Berlin) - Ella Fitzgerald (1:55, 2:50, 3:44, 4:00) Ella forgets the lyrics and freestyles new verses, (3:16) Ella does an impression of Louis Armstrong.
1963 I Saw Her Standing There – The Beatles (0:00) Audible count-in.
1963 Twist And Shout – The Beatles (2:27) Cheer at the end.
1963 Louie Louie – The Kingsmen (0:53) Drummer swears. (1:56) Vocals enter early. Many later cover versions deliberately emulate this mistake.
1963 Fingertips - Part 2 - Stevie Wonder (2:22) bassist Joe Swift can be heard asking "What key?" (referenced in Shadows In The Rain – Sting (0:00)
1965 Bob Dylan's 115th Dream – Bob Dylan (0:00) False start grafted onto the beginning of the best take.
1965 My Generation – The Who (0:05, 0:16, 0:30, 0:36, 0:41, 0:45, 1:20, 1:25, 1:58, 2:04) Stuttering.
1966 Taxman – The Beatles(0:00) Two audible count-ins, coughing, tape noise.
1966 I Saw Her Again – The Mamas And The Papas (2:42) Vocals enter early.
1966 Here Today – The Beach Boys (1:51) Conversation audible under the solo.
1967 A Day In The Life - The Beatles (1:43/3:50) Mal’s 'bar count' still audible

1968 Helter Skelter - The Beatles (4:24) Ringo’s shout at the end
1968 Happiness Is A Warm Gun - The Beatles (0:57) John’s ‘down’ remains from an earlier take
1968 Revolution 1 – The Beatles (0:00) Conversation and audible count-in. (3:23) Extra beat caused by bad tape edit.
1968 Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da – The Beatles (2:33) Paul gets the lyrics wrong.
1968 Hey Jude  – The Beatles (2:58) John swears.
1969 Her Majesty - The Beatles - entire song was cut from the album and ended up at the master tape by mistake
1970 The Beehive State - Harry Nilsson (0:54) Distorted sound from headphone bleed
1970 So Long Dad - Harry Nilsson (1:56) Instructions to engineer
1970 Big Yellow Taxi - Joni Mitchell (2:10) Joni laughs after switching from soprano to bass.
1971 Stairway To Heaven - Led Zeppelin (1:32) Vocals come in four bars early on second verse.
1971 Andy Warhol – David Bowie (0:10) Bowie correcting engineer Ken Scott's pronunciation of title.
1972 C Moon - Wings (0:17) Vocals enter late "Is that the intro I should have been in"
1973 Let Me Roll It - Paul McCartney and Wings (4:22) Extra beat caused by bad tape edit.
1973 The Jean Genie - David Bowie (0:37) bass/guitar start chorus a bar early. Bowie says "get back on it" (?).
1978 Roxanne – The Police (0:03) Sting sits on piano in vocal booth and laughs.
1978 Have Thine Own Way Lord (Personal File version) – Johnny Cash (0:37) Restarts after playing in the wrong key.
1985 You're Only Human (Second Wind) - Billy Joel (3:19) Billy stutters and laughs.
1985 Paisley Park - Prince (2:44) singing start of the verse ‘who’ too early
1989 Flying In a Blue Dream – Joe Satriani (0:02) Recording picks up ghostly radio interference.
1991 Polly – Nirvana (1:55) Vocals enter early.
1994 The Man Who Sold The World (MTV Unplugged) - Nirvana (2:48) Lead guitar bum note.
1997 Little Wonder - David Bowie (0:39) Bowie says “I'm getting it”. (3:09, 3:22) Bass soundcheck used as samples for breakdown.
1997 Good Riddance (Time Of Your Life) – Green Day (0:00) False start and swearing.
2001 I Do – Paul McCartney (0:46) caught his breath, fluffed vocal delivery
2002 Beautiful - Christina Aguilera (3:46) Deleted drum track audible through headphone bleed.
2005 Fine Line – Paul McCartney (0:00) warm up noises, count in (0:46) incorrect bass note.
2005 You're Beautiful - James Blunt (0:23) Vocals enter early.
2006 You're Pitiful - "Weird Al" Yankovic (0:12) Not a mistake but a spoof of the false start in James Blunt's song.
2011 Level With Yourself - David Bazan (0:53) David coughs and says “nope”.
2014 Air Conditioning – Sleaford Mods (1:00) Bass mistake.
2019 Deleted Scene (Attempted Bravery) – Matt Blick (0:08) Matt sings wrong lyrics, (0:35) Car horn outside studio.
2019 The River of Suffering – Matt Blick (3:09) Police siren outside studio.




Thanks to ‪Rob Stevens, Jonathan Nelson, ‪Andy Getch, ‪Martin Quibell, ‪Nancy Rost, ‪Rod Downburst Johnson for suggesting examples.

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