diff --git a/Lib/wave.py b/Lib/wave.py
index 08c51ba90c1..b993b400c2c 100644
--- a/Lib/wave.py
+++ b/Lib/wave.py
@@ -159,7 +159,12 @@ class Wave_read:
             f = __builtin__.open(f, 'rb')
             self._i_opened_the_file = f
         # else, assume it is an open file object already
-        self.initfp(f)
+        try:
+            self.initfp(f)
+        except:
+            if self._i_opened_the_file:
+                f.close()
+            raise
 
     def __del__(self):
         self.close()
@@ -297,7 +302,12 @@ class Wave_write:
         if isinstance(f, basestring):
             f = __builtin__.open(f, 'wb')
             self._i_opened_the_file = f
-        self.initfp(f)
+        try:
+            self.initfp(f)
+        except:
+            if self._i_opened_the_file:
+                f.close()
+            raise
 
     def initfp(self, file):
         self._file = file
diff --git a/Misc/NEWS b/Misc/NEWS
index ec9ef6ee03e..f69d1b57ca4 100644
--- a/Misc/NEWS
+++ b/Misc/NEWS
@@ -173,6 +173,9 @@ Core and builtins
 Library
 -------
 
+- Patch #1681153: the wave module now closes a file object it opened if
+  initialization failed.
+
 - Bug #767111: fix long-standing bug in urllib which caused an
   AttributeError instead of an IOError when the server's response didn't
   contain a valid HTTP status line.