One of the most iconic Beatle hits features a GIANT BOMB! Wait, a McCartney smash features a curse? You have heard this song a 1000 times! It’s possible you may even own it!
It’s Not A Myth
I apologize if this story isn’t new. I just found out that one of the most famous Paul McCartney hits, features a giant F-bomb. The amazing story caught my eye, and I had to find out for myself.
In Hey Jude, around 2:55 in, after Paul sings “let her under your skin” you can actually hear Paul faintly say f-ing hell. Reportedly, during the recording, that was the result of Paul hitting a wrong piano note, and couldn’t control his frustration. John Lennon insisted that the engineer leave it in.
Beatles Engineer Geoff Emerick
From Cheatsheet.com, Beatle recording engineer Geoff Emerick shares more on Hey Jude:
….But the recording did have a few flaws. Around 2:55, you hear someone exclaim something right after “…let her under your skin.” (It sounds like “Oh!” or “Aw!”) Right afterward, much more buried in the mix, you can hear someone say “f—king hell.”
According to Geoff Emerick, the EMI engineer who worked with The Beatles on Sgt. Pepper’s and most of the other great albums, Paul and John heard it but left it in anyway. In fact, John was adamant about keeping it.
Emerick didn’t engineer “Hey Jude.” (He’d quit on the band after the debacle that was “Ob-La-Di, Ob-La, Da.”) However, he did agree to come over to the studio (Trident, in this case) to check on the sound of the new single. And he recalled John telling him about the flaw in the take.
“Paul hit a clunker on the piano and said a naughty word,” Emerick remembered John saying. Rather than ask him to take it out in the finished mix, John did the opposite: He insisted the f-bomb stay on the record. In the end, John got his wish, and The Beatles got their next No. 1 anyway.
So, its true: a McCartney smash features a curse! Hear it for yourself below! See more music flubs that were left in the song!