Page "Hey Jude" Paragraph 13

At 2: 58 of the song, someone can allegedly be heard to say, " Fucking hell!

" There is some dispute as to who said this, and whether it was really exclaimed at all.

Sound engineers Ken Scott and Geoff Emerick claim the exclamation came from McCartney, and that it was Lennon's idea to leave the mistake in the final mix.

"' Paul hit a clunker on the piano and said a naughty word ,' Lennon gleefully crowed, ' but I insisted we leave it in, buried just low enough so that it can barely be heard.

Most people won't ever spot it ... but we'll know it's there.

'" However, in the book Recording The Beatles, engineer Malcolm Toft recalls, " Barry Sheffield engineered ' Hey Jude ', but I mixed it ... John Lennon says a very rude word about halfway through the song.

At 2: 59 you will hear a ' Whoa!

' from him in the background.

About two seconds later you will hear, ' Fucking hell!

' This was because when he was doing a vocal backing, Barry sent him the foldback level volume too loud and he threw the cans on the ground and uttered the expletive.

But, because it had been bounced down with the main vocal, it could not be removed.

I just managed to bring the fader down for a split second on the mix to try to lessen the effect.

" Others argue that the voice is Ringo Starr's.