Babe I'm Gonna Leave you - Led Zeppelin

[wallie!]

Great song!

can I get another opinion on this...at 1:40-1:43 I can hear something really weird in the background :S it sounds like vocals but im not too sure...could it possibly be an artifact, or possibly a take they forgot to take out? If you turn it up really loud you should be able to hear it...

it sounds like "somethin...falling rain" to me

haha weird as
subliminal message perhaps?

[wallie!]

somebody just directed me to this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Babe_I'm_Gonna_Leave_You

"At the 1:43 mark of Led Zeppelin's version of "Babe I'm Gonna Leave You", it is possible to hear a very faint trace of Plant singing, "I can hear it calling me" just before he sings the same line in full volume. It is as if he "hears it calling him." This "ghost" is the vocal bleed from Plant's scratch vocal, and it appears on the drum tracks, which were recorded live with the full band."

turns out im not crazy after all!

[bammbamm]

You can hear the lyrics here perfectly

[jemaholic]

The same anomaly was recorded on the song "Whole Lotta Love" during Plant's acapella section: "...way down inside....woman,,,,,,you need it...."

Back in the day there were no click tracks so scratch vocal tracks were used to keep time in quiet sections or passages with no drums and re-recorded when the rest of the song was completed. Most of the time you can't hear the scratch track - UNLESS there were effects used at the time it was recorded -effects bleed through to other tracks when recorded on tape.
That is what you're hearing - the bleed-through of the scratch vocal effect onto the drum tracks - only because the drum tracks were next to that vocal track on the tape. You can tell it's the effect - because it's out of time with the song - just like any effect would be.
-jemaholic

[David McCarroll]

and what a sensational piece of music eh?

[bammbamm]

You guys oughtta read "Hammer of the Gods, the led Zeppelin Saga".
Great bio of the band. You get to hear about some insane excess, drugs, women, booze, you know, what music is all about!

[caprile]

You just have to love how a technical flow creates a great sound!

How cool it must have been in the 50's "this speaker is broken...my guitar is *distorting*"