Having read a huge amount about The Beatles, I thought I pretty much knew all the quirks in their recordings. How wrong I was.

 

I have just been enjoying Here, There and Everywhere by Geoff Emerick, the man who was the engineer on Sgt Pepper and Abbey Road, along with many other Beatles tracks. For aficionados it is an unmissable book, a superb account of their work in the studio.

 

This morning I read Emerick's account of the recording of Hey Jude.

 

Emerick wasn't the engineer on the track - the recording didn't begin at Abbey Road - but he was called in to fix problems caused by technical deficiencies at Trident Studios.

 

He notes that when he listened to the mix, in the third verse:

 

Right between the lines "The minute you let her under your skin/ Oh, then you begin" you can clearly hear Paul curse off mic saying 'F****** hell!"

 

Apparently this exclamation was caused by McCartney playing a duff note on the piano.

 

The Beatles knew it was there, but John Lennon insisted it stay. He wanted it low in the final mix so that while most people wouldn't realise it was there, the Beatles could enjoy it.

 

And so it stayed. And when I put down Emerick's book I realise that the expletive can be heard, really quite clearly. You can hear it from minute 2:56 of the song.

 

source: http://timesonline.typepad.com/comment/200...rong-i-was.html

I always thought it was John who swore on the track.

 

http://www.chrishunt.biz/features01.html

 

 

Well all their songs were penned as Lennon & McCartney, so I guess they could both claim jointly the swearing as well :D

There is debate over who it is who's actually swearing on Hey Jude, however you will also find that in Penny Lane (have I got the right song), the backing vocals are the John and George chanting 'tit tit tit tit!' I read this in Many Years From Now I think.