15 Bizarro Details of the Recordings of Famous Songs

Recording a hit song is a serious and expensive endeavor, except when it involves a bunch of celebrities with god complexes and alarming blood alcohol levels, which is usually.
15 Bizarro Details of the Recordings of Famous Songs

This is the third installment of the “Stupendous Facts To Entertain Our Brains” series. The first two installments were titled “Astonishing Facts To Entertain Our Brains” and “Incredible Facts To Entertain Our Brains”. These are all true and verifiable. I enjoy this list of interesting facts. I hope you enjoy it too. Some of these facts are so mind-bogglingly unbelievable that you might think they were made up. But they're not. These facts are real. In fact, I've tried to make the list as accurate and exhaustive as possible, but there are probably some facts that slipped by my notice, so if you enjoy this list of interesting facts, please share it with your friends and family, so we can get the word out and correct the list for future editions. If you think I missed any facts or you'd like to share some additional interesting facts of your own, let me know in the comments.

”(Sittin’ On) the Dock of the Bay” by Otis Redding

(Sittin' On) the Dock of the Bay by Otis Redding CRACKED CON Don't feel bad if you can't nail the whis- tling at the end of the sing - it was never supposed to be there. Co-writer Steve Cropper always left space at the end of a song for Redding to riff, but when it came time to add that extra pizzazz to the end of (Sittin' On) the Dock of the Bay, he straight-up forgot what he wanted to sing and just started whistling instead. Не intended to continue playing around with the song, but two days later, he died in

Rolling Stone

“Roxanne” by the Police

Roxanne by the Police CRACKED.COM That jumble of notes at the begin- ning of Roxanne where it sounds like someone punching a piano was, in fact, someone sitting on a piano. Yep, one of the most famous songs in music history is partially played by Sting's butt. That's also why you can hear him laughing a second later.

Gibson

“Louie Louie” by the Kingsmen

Louie Louie by the Kingsmen CRACKED.COM The most well-known version of the Jamai- can sea shanty is famously so garbled that the FBI investigated it for obscenity, but that wasn't the result of any particular ar- tistic choice so much as the fact that the Kingsmen were broke and not great deci- sion-makers. They used the single studio hour they'd scraped up enough cash to se- cure to record a song they barely knew, then wasted it on what they thought was a practice take. There actually is an obsceni- ty in the song, shouted in frustration by the drummer,

NewYorker

“Tequila” by the Champs

Tequila by the Champs The CHAMPS CRACKED.COM Tequila came together in a simi- lar fashion, just some session musi- cians farting around, trying to fill a B-side by recording the lowest-ef- fort jams imaginable. The Champs weren't even a band until the song took off and someone told them they had to have a name to put on their Grammy.

VinePair

"Kiss Him Goodbye" by Steam

Kiss Him Goodbye by Steam The - Nations KISS HIM GOOOBYE CRACKED.COM The na na na na, na na na na, hey hey, goodbye song was only re- corded because songwriter Paul Leka's buddy needed a B-side for his single, so they quickly pound- ed it out as badly as possible for a patience-testing four minutes to ensure that it didn't get played. Unfortunately, they didn't do it badly enough.

NYTimes

“Gold Dust Woman” by Fleetwood Mac

Gold Dust Woman by Fleetwood Mac FIEETWOOD-MAC RUMOURS GRAGKED.COM The recording of Rumours was a scien- tifically unique type of chaos, but Gold Dust Woman was chaotic for reasons that had nothing to do with who was sleeping with whom. Stevie Nicks had decided the best way to capture her vo- cals was by wrapping her whole head in the black scarf while Mick Fleetwood pounded a variety of instruments that aren't usually considered instruments, from a jet phaser to panes of glass he smashed with a hammer as she sang.

MusicRadar

“Shine On You Crazy Diamond” by Pink Floyd

Shine On You Crazy Diamond by Pink Floyd CRACKED.COM Founding member Syd Barrett left Pink Floyd before they hit it big, having become incapaci- tated by mental illness, but he had a huge in- fluence on the band long after. In fact, they were recording a song written about him, the perhaps politically incorrect Shine On You Crazy Diamond, when he just walked into the studio, initially unrecognized by some mem- bers of the band because he'd changed so much since they'd last seen him. They made pleasant small talk, Roger Waters asked him what he thought of the song,

Pink Floyd

“A Day in the Life” by the Beatles

A Day in the Life by the Beatles PEPPERS LONELY HEARTS CRACKED COM Firmly rooted in their obnoxious phase by the recording of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, the Beatles demanded that the orchestral section of A Day in the Life be played by 40 classical musicians all dressed in full evening wear. As if that wasn't annoy- ing enough, when the musicians showed up, they were then told they'd also be wearing an assortment of funny hats, clown noses, and whatever else Paul McCartney could find at the British '60s equivalent of Party City.

AppleCorp

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