Never noticed that Bonham one, but will forever from now on. Same applies to The Searcher's Needles & Pins single, which had a yellow vinyl 70's re-release with a (possibly) Porky Peckham runout groove comment of 'Squeak Squeak' scratched into each pressing.
Listen to Chuck Berry's 'No Money Down' and hear the drummer drop a stick after the last beat in the fade-out, and was the Fairport's smashed bottle in 'Si Du Tois Partir' real or a studio affectation?

The guitarist, who I always assumed to be Robbie Robertson, forgets to change to the right chord at about 6.27 in Visions Of Johanna, because he's doing what was required of him on every other verse thus far. But Bob has more to say and elongates the verse. No matter. This is Visions Of Johanna, for God's sake: the best song on the best album by the best singer/songwriter/performer EVER. You couldn't kill it if you tried.

and I know I've gone on about Dion before, but if you haven't heard this then click below and pop down to listen to the first take of The Wanderer :

http://tinyurl.com/2b93ma

After you hear a sarcastic comment from Dion, he then records a far superior, far less bland vocal than the end product - and he starts to learn his way around the words and the rhythm. If you listen to the entire track it falls apart somewhere around the second chorus. Truly marvellous stuff.

..exist because of the almost forgotten art of track bouncing.
In those pre-32 track days 4 or eight tracks were reduced to 2 including another over-dub. Once commited to, any mistake was more or less set in stone, unless you wanted to start from scratch, which not many were inclined to do as they wanted to get down the Bag O' Nails.
Anyway, back then the "vibe" was considered far more important.

Creep due to a cock up by the guitarist?

Bowie - 'Young Americans' at around 2:47
The rhythm guitar is hopelessly out of tune.

Led Zep - 'The Ocean'
During the later section (while repeating the main riff and near the "uh uh yeah" bit) a telephone could clearly be heard ringing. When cranked to the right volume, several mates have cried out 'your phone's going'- seems to have been airbrushed out in later CD releases.

Pink Floyd - 'Wish You Here'
Dave Gilmour has a stealthy sniff (around 0:40 - 0:44) before laying down his opening acoustic riffery

The Beatles - 'Hey Jude'
At 1:42 there's a rogue 'let it out and let it in'

And check here for an encyclopaedia of Beatles anomalies
http://www.pootle.demon.co.uk/wgo.htm
including apparently an undeleted spot of 'effing and jeffing' during 'Hey Jude'

Johnnie Allen's zydeco version of the Chuck Berry song has a mistake which is so tiny it really doesn't matter, but which hits me in the eardrum everytime I hear it. Chuck originally wrote (key word in bold):

Workin' on a t-bone steak a la carte
Flying over to the golden state;
The pilot told me in thirteen minutes
We'd be landing at the terminal gate.

Swing low chariot, come down easy
Taxi to the terminal zone;
Cut your engines and cool your wings,
And let me make it to the telephone.

But Johnnie sings:
Swing low chariot, come down easy
Taxi to the terminal gate;

Thus no rhyme for "...phone" at the end of that verse.

I can't believe the time I've spent writing this out - but it just...it just... it just bugs me.

The Quo's Dog of Two Head ('Head'? 'Heads', surely) is a treasure trove of squeaky bass drum pedal-ness for the attentive afficionado. And wasn't it Jean Genie where the whole band came in early on a chorus?

Doesn't Dylan cock up exactly 4 minutes into "Like A Rolling Stone"?
"How does it feel? To haaa...be on your own?".
Dylan's raggedness is one of my favourite aspects of his music (see also: Rolling Stones (e.g. Exile On Main Street), Tom Waits, Pogues, etc.)

The Fabs were indeed past masters of the cock-up, 'Long, Long, Long' being my favourite. At the end, a low note on the Leslie organ causes an empty bottle of Blue Nun on top of it to rattle producing a ghostly effect which McCartney extemporises on.
Another corker is The Jackson 5's 'I Want You Back' in which Michael sings one 'Ooh-ooh baby' so off-key that time stands still. Trooper that he is (was), he carries on as if nothing has happened.
While I'm on, which record had broadcasts from the taxi office next door on it because something in the studio kept picking up the frequency?

There's a guitar string break in Stars Go Blue by Ryan Adams which I hear everytime. Great song though and there's another Ryan Adams song where you can hear the engineer/producer crash on the record button and the tape get up to speed as Adams goes off into new song mode.

I can also remember ABC's slow version of Poison Arrow - Theme from Mantrap -which is marred by what sounds like a microphone scrape.

Also:Was it cassette tape technology or a recording error where you used to sometimes hear a pre-echo of a vocal before the proper vocal came in?

The sequencer melody at the start of Blue Monday is completely out of time with the drum beat and yet the song still sounds a bit like the future.

So I read, the power in the control room cut out during the sessions for Zuma, while the studio was unchallenged leading to an entire verse being missed out of Cortez The Killer. Synchronistically, it magically came back on at exactly the right time so that the finished version moved seamlessly from one verse to the next with no appreciable drop out being apparent to the casual listener apart from an odd gap in the narrative. It's there if you can spot it, so I'm told and, of course, the recorded version was deemed appreciably tighter so that's what they played live from then on. Allegedly.

The biggest mistake on record is on The Beatles' Hey Jude. At exactly 2.58, on the right hand channel, one of the band utters, "F--kin' 'ell!"
Trust me, it's there. It's always been there. On every commercially available version of the song. It makes me smile that each time this record is played on radio stations throughout the world, some prime Anglo Saxon language seeps out through the loudspeakers. Or the right hand one, at any rate.
Not even on the Beatles One album did anyone see fit to edit this out...
Warning - once you are aware of this verbal interjection into what is one of the greatest records ever made, you will never hear it the same way again. Amaze your friends. Bore your neighbours, etc. 2.58. Turn it up!

I seem to recall an audible sneeze towards the end of the abovementioned song by Lord Morrissey of Curmudgeon. Not sure if its his DNA hitting the booth walls or one of his soon-to-be fired hired hands.

I always chuckle a little at the end of Modest Mouse's sublime shout-along single 'Float On' as someone comes in early (at about 3.15) for the final cry of "ALRIGHT!"

It's almost, but not quite, covered by the actual lyric, but when you know it's there, you can't stop hearing it.

I think Johnsey's query about the track picking up broadcasts from the taxi office is Clifford T Ward's 'Homethoughts From Abroad'. You can hear it in the background in the first verse.

Bad tape edits - John Lennon's 'Working Class Hero' has a real clunker!

Sir Terry Wogan's favourite song, fact fans. Thanks Gramster.

The 1975 radio version of 'I'm Not In Love' boasted a truly shocking tape edit; 30 seconds was hacked off arbitrarily near the end, prompting even Timmy Bannockburn to remark on how bad it was.

According to Rick Wakeman, the worst edit ever was for the US single version of Yes's 'Roundabout' which was so bizarre that it acquired a brief section in 4/5 time that wasn't on the original, & required the band to re-learn their own song for their TV appearances plugging it.

See also: a shocking Elektra double butchering from 1967. Love's 'Alone Again Or' (a not unreasonable 3mins 17sec in it's full form) and the Doors 'Light My Fire' both cropped down to the bones.

Talk of 'I'm Not In Love' has dislodged another memory of Godley and Creme's, 'Under Your Thumb' - seem to remember a shocking edit on that one too.

I was unfamiliar with the story of the taxi office on 'Homethoughts From Abroad' but always wondered what the walkie-talkie interference was. When you asked the question it all clicked into place. Excellent result!

Thanks Matt for the info on print through.

I can recall some glaring tape edits. Godley and Creme (again) on Wedding Bells and again with Crowded House where Neil and Tim Finn's sensible decision to ration the annoying/memorable Weather With You chorus in the album version was ignored in the single version where it suddenly appeared after the first verse.

I also recall lines in the Boomtown Rat's Rat Trap being re-done for radio/single versions. I also read that AM radio stations in the US weren't happy with Steely Dan pushing their rivals with the track 'FM'. The solution was to drop in the 'A" from 'Aja' and lose the offending 'F"! It worked perfectly musically, it was said. But has anyone heard this rare version?

Another appalling edit is the start of 'hit me with your rhythm stick', sounds like most of the intro was just chopped off with something blunt.

...more a drop in.

Stevie Wonder's vocal on 'For once in my life', just after the harmonica solo (about 2 minutes in). It's the change in the quality of his voice between 'I won't let...' relative to 'Sorrow hurt me' that jars. Probably out of breath after the solo.
Still, at least it proves the solo and the first section of vocal were a single take.

Another song ruined by headphone listening...

Now, I know that the greats such as the Beatles etc are permitted the odd cock-up, but one that's bothered me since the age of 9 is the two seemingly random squeaks at 0:53 of If You Can't Stand The Heat by the literally amazing Bucks Fizz.

As an innocent child, I thought it was my copy of the 7", but no, it's there on that Best (that we could afford to licence) Of The 80s compilation in glorious digital.

Any thoughts? (And be nice)

The blues-men were always quite casual about getting things perfect - John Lee Hooker never bothered too much if there were 12 or 13 bars in his blues, and the rest of the band just had to keep up as best they could - but I've always been struck by the utter confidence with which Bo Diddley plays a clangingly obvious wrong chord in "You Can't Judge A Book By Looking At The Cover" (2' 27" in, fact fans).

On If I Fell, the second time Macca and Lennon sing "was in vain", Macca's voice completely falls apart, like he's finally found a note he can't handle and his throat decides to close down in protest. Either that, or one of the others hit him (random interjection: great anecdote from Tony Visconti's autobiography, when Visconti is telling Lennon how Macca nicked the arranging credit on the bridge strings on Band On the Run, and Lennon decides to cancel a meeting he was due to have with Macca because Visconti had, with this anecdote, reminded Lennon "what a c*nt [Macca] is."

During the fadeout of this (very short) song by the Stone Roses, there's a loud squeak, rather like someone treading on a mouse. I originally thought it was a glitch on my cassette, but no. Slap on the wrist, John Leckie.