Beatles remasters: "Oh, f*cking hell!"

We've been working our way through the Beatles remasters, and although we'd have preferred that the cleaned-up, brightened, state-of-the-art recordings had been released ten years ago when people were still buying CDs and we were still listening to music on big Spicas with tweeters and woofers and pre-amps and tubes instead of earbuds, car stereos and computer speakers, the tracks sound great and there are more than a few revelations:

* Paul McCartney does say "Oh, fucking hell!" at around 2:58 of Hey Jude (sound engineers Ken Scott and Geoff Emerick have said that Paul blurted it after hitting a clunker and that it was Lennon's idea to leave the mistake in the final mix-- buried low enough so no one will hear it-- turn up the treble and crank it and you can hear it now).

* Ticket To Ride is actually "Ticket to Rye," after all. Legend has it that someone mislabeled the tape box.

* Listen to the countdown on I Saw Her Standing There and tell us what you hear...

* And the winner is... Ringo! The remasters place his drumming loud and clear, front and center and reveal his work to be as masterful, innovative and wondrous as anyone's in the band.

We've still got to track down Magical Mystery Tour to hear what Lennon really shouts in Baby You're A Rich Man.