Anomalies D
0:05-0:06
Click, centre.
1:20
Right channel only, someone shouts "Hey!" right before the solo starts.
1:40
The note progression that starts at 1:21 in the left channel (guitar) seems to cut off very abruptly at 1:40, as if excess was edited away.
1:50, 1:56, 2:32
There are three extremely noticeable dropouts near the end of the song. This is not on any earlier mixes of the same take, so it is quite likely that it happened during the mastering stage. Other mixes show a sound at 1:50 that was likely the reason for the dropout, and John's misplaced "yeah" at 2:32, but one has to wonder if the cure wasn't worse than the illness.
This is particularly true in the 2:32 case, since one can still hear the "yeah" as we plunge into the dropout. The dropout at 1:50 punches the sixth note of the riff out, 1:56 punches the first note of the riff out.
2:06
1st voice: "She was a daaay tripper, Sun-day driver yeh"
2nd voice: "She was a daaay tripper, One-day driver yeh"
John is still thinking "one-way ticket yeh" and half-sings it!
2:40
Paul's bass line gets stuck, gets stuck, gets stuck, gets back into it.
1:45 (Left)
The bass guitar is tapped for two notes, and struck for the third during the quiet break here.
2:05 (Left)
The solo electric guitar, which faded out at 2:00 reappears here as if the fader was brought up too soon.
2:07, 2:11 (Left)
Rumbling or sliding sound, followed by bump noise. Probably accidental sounds from the bass guitar.
2:10-2:11
Leakage of picking of an acoustic guitar (centre) during quiet spot. Whether this is the "unprocessed" sound of one of John's guitar tracks that we can hear on the right, or whether it is a guide part, I don't know.
2:38-2:39
Slight hesitation in the bass guitar part, as if Paul was going to go for one more go at his descending riff, than realised to change patterns. One note is late while thinking about it.
2:50
Bass guitar tone changes suddenly to a woodier sound, and it carries on to end of track like this.
0:25
Somebody in the backing vocal enters at the wrong note and quickly corrects, scooping upward.
2:04
Accidental early start to the end guitar figure.
0:02-0:09 Listen!
Unknown voices from the film crew
"Rolling?"
"Yeah!"
"Ok!"
John: <Count in> "Ah 1 2 3 er".
Ringo: <slightly off mic> "Hold it!"
John: <sniffs, close on mic> "Aaah."
Paul: <mocking> "Hooold it ..."
John: "Ah One Two [Tell You]?"
(a play on the title "I Want To Tell You"?)
Despite the count in measure being 4 beats, the song is in 3/4 time. The false 'fourth' beat is the downbeat of the next bar, coinciding with the bass note, and the second word of "Hold it".
1:42
Left channel, there's a click and small change in guitar sound - possible drop in or edit?
2:10
Paul's voice cracks on high harmony, "Be-c .. ooh!"
2:41-2:42,3:03
Two plosives in John's mic/vocal on "indi[c]ate every[th]ing" and "[b]oat you row".
3:45-3:53 Listen!
John says: "Thank you, brothers. Me hands getting er... too cold to play the chords". Edited in from the rooftop performance.
0:42
Strange tempo anomaly - the track goes out of time here. One bar here is played a little too fast. Eddie G reports that
On "Dizzy Miss Lizzy", the first time John sings "Come on, give me fever", the whole band come in maybe a beat too early. If you count or tap along with the song up till and after that point, it's totally obvious. But they managed to get away with it by all coming in together.
Counting cowbell strikes, there is the correct number of beats. The bars before and after this point are the same length. The bar through this drum fill, however, is a bit shorter. One rushed bar?
0:49
John flubs the lyric "You make me Dizzy Dizz Lizzy".
1:23-1:26
Right channel, the drums drop out - they continue on left channel only.
Jeremy Deubler writes
The lead guitar riff should be very prominent throughout the song. There are several mistakes that can be heard:
1) At the beginning of the song, the riff is repeated a few times before the vocals come in. It sounds as though the riff is double-tracked. At "You make me dizzy Miss Lizzy," (0:23) the first note of the riff seems to be missing. The next time, (0:26) one of the guitars plays the first note but the other misses it. This happens several times (0:30, 0:40) etc.
2) After the break when John comes back in with "You make me dizzy...", the riff is played very quietly as if George is unsure (1:31), and right at the last note, the riff from the other track (if it was double-tracked) comes in - one must have been in the wrong place! (1:47)
3) Through that whole verse, the riff is played very quietly, as if George doesn't know when to come in or something.
0:03
Reported as George Harrison commenting about it being "too fast". Also reported as George saying "B-flat". I can't hear anything clearly, just a vocal "aa" sound.
0:01-0:04
The sound level from the bass or guitar amplifiers causes the snares to rattle, which is picked up in the drum mics. Happens at other places throughout song.
1:09
The word "let" distorts quite a bit.
1:31
Faint edit, finger click can be heard.
1:43
Just after "it's a love that has no past", talking is heard (John's voice), sometimes heard as "Believe it/me".
"Lennon9@earthlink" says on this
"Well here is one possibility....In all of the ends of the previous verses Paul plays the high E in various manners....one note slides...sixteen note flourishes etc... When 1:43 rolls around I think John looks over at Paul and says "Leave it." just before Paul would have hit the high E..."
Possible, but to me it seems like coincidence - and there's a definite leading "S" to the words, and sounds more like "San ee eh/ih".
rubbersoul_12@hotmail.com also offers
John calls, "Good evening" to someone entering the studio.
Drew Hill adds
John says "it's in E flat" referring to the key
... which is a shame, because it's in E (thanks for pointing that out, Chris Chardi! I should've known better, to quote the song ...)
Another alternative is "It's an infinite", referring to the love that lasts for ever, and has no past.
Jeffrey Jacobs says
I came up with another interesting theory on what he might be saying: "CD Player!"
That would be impressive, if true!
Father Titus says [in reference to the rooftop weather]
I concluded that what John is saying is simply, "It's sleeting".
1:56
Tambourine rattle, but also sometimes reported as glass breaking.
2:12
Serious sound of breath in the microphone (from "Ffffirst time").
2:25-2:27
Paul high-harmonises "nobody ever really done me", but so faintly it is hardly heard.
3:22
When John is winding up the last chorus, he sings "Can you dig it?" slightly off-mic. This was the refrain for another Lennon song recorded earlier the same month, January of 1969, which appears in edited-down form on Let It Be as "Dig It".
"Can you dig it?" was edited out of the final Phil Spector cut for "Dig It", so the lyric's only appearance in the whole of The Beatles' commercial catalogue is here.
0:07
Left channel, someone shouts something, like "Hold up!"
1:48
Most strangely, an alarm bell goes off in the middle of "unfair" (right channel).
2:39-2:48
Someone (likely Ringo) sings out the beats from one to eight, and then shouts "ooop" (right channel). At the same time John says (left channel) "Give it some more!" (Level ? More of the song ?)
2:54-3:23
The structure of the last chorus is slightly different to the others. Max Mismetti notes that at least part of this is because of a mistake (anomaly!).
On Anthology 2, I found the answer! Apparently, Ringo recorded the basic track and forgot the order of events on the end, or he made a mistake on the basic track and wasn't feeling like recording it all over again. So he sang normally as if the mistake hadn't happened, but on Anthology we can hear the piano better. The song chords are C, F and G. The mistake can be seen because the piano has its chord change delayed 1/4 of bar (between brackets is where it was supposed to be)
C(correct)
Don't pass me by, don't make me cry don't make me blue
(F) F
Cause you know darling I love only you
(C) C
You'll never know it hurts me so
How I hate to see you go...
G (corrected!)
Don't pass me by
That's why he sings differently "know it hurts me so" and makes a lot of noise with his drums. It's to disguise that F chord that is still on. You can hear on the White Album too, but on the Anthology 2 is better.
3:24-3:50
Lots of fiddle harmonics. Also noted in other places in the song. "No one uses fiddle harmonics" claims one contributor. I can hear why. Ugh.
Andrew Lubman writes
I think that it's just a case of bad playing technique that results in these unintentional artificial harmonics. Also, the fiddle parts are different in the mono version (if I remember correctly).
0:39
George sings a wrong note and quickly corrects it on the first "oo-oo-oo".
0:42
Lead vocal quality seems to change here, as if a new take has been used, or as if there's a vocal drop-in here.
1:02
Slight tape dropout here.
1:09
George sings "I've known a secret for the week or two" as opposed to the more sensible "the secret for a".
1:11, also 1:49-1:54
Bass guitar plays wrong notes here and there.
1:29
"Do you promise not to tell, adh (doo-dah-doo)"
Was George about to sing "A Doo Dah Doo" by mistake?
(Also reported as someone answering "I do".)
1:51
Reported as a bass trombone note, there is one very bad buzzy note in the guitar work here.
0:16
Click (right channel), not audible on mono version.
0:20
Harsh edit, right channel, as piano comes in.
0:44
Guitar fret-squeak sound, right channel.
0:52
Strange 'peep' (on the right channel) as the piano comes back in. Not on mono version. Probably from George's guitar.
Also George Martin hits one note too many, making a duff chord on the second chord of this chorus fill (the chord that comes on the downbeat). Quickly corrects it, though.
1:20-1:22
Paul? sings "You ... can ... drive my ... car" along to the last few notes of guitar solo. Listen carefully, the last 3 notes of the solo are on top of the words "Drive My Car". Very hard to hear on CD version, this needs the vinyl version.
1:42-1:53
Centre of stereo field, right after "start right away" and each subsequent vocal line there are a number of stray guitar notes, as if the guitarist is idling, unaware they are being heard!
1:46
Paul fluffs the bass riff and plays a "safe" note instead.
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