Led Zeppelin song by song thread

yeah, not only is that NOT chuckberry but its still not like anything I ever played in the rockabilly bands.

 

Immigrant Song:
Beavis/Butthead: DUH-DUH DEH DUH DUH DUH DEH DUH
Beavis: AaaaAaaaahhh AH! AaaaAaaaahhh AH!
Hey Butthead, where is the land of ice and snow?
Butthead: Uh, it’s this place where guys scream after getting kicked in the nads.
Beavis: Oh yeah, heh-heh, cool.
AaaaAaaaahhh AH! AaaaAaaaahhh AH!

Spoiler

What can I say, it’s an all time classic, from that riff, to Plant’s scream, JPJ’s rumbling bass, to the thundering drums, it’s a good one to say the least.

Friends:
Beavis: Hey Butthead, is the from that show?
Butthead: uhhhh, no Beavis, that song has real guitars.
Beavis: Oh yeah, heh heh. You ever notice how it’s always cold on that show?
Butthead: Yeah, huh huh, and that chick is always poking through, huh huh, that’s cool.

Spoiler

This is an awesome and such an interesting way to follow Immigrant Song, with some great acoustic guitar and cool little bongos from Bonham, love the strings on here, Plant is great as always, a highlight of the record.

Celebration Day:
Beavis: Bweenner bweener nah! Heh-heh, cool.
Butthead: Yeah, huh huh, reminds me of those hillbilly shows.
Beavis: Yeah and the General, heh heh.
Butthead: Yeah, That was cool.

Spoiler

This was a grower, I didn’t initially get into it, but I absolutely love it now, fantastic track.

 

Interesting about JPJ. I did a little search and some sources say it is JPJ on lap steel. The more I listen to it, the more it does sound like a lap steel since the timbre has that unwavering sound that comes from the heavy strings. Page said he did all the guitars on CD and played the slide with one of his guitars to open A.

In an interview Page gave to Guitar World magazine in 1993, he discussed the construction of the song:

There's about three or four riffs going down on that one, isn't there? Half was done with a guitar in standard tuning and the other half was done on slide guitar tuned to an open A, I think. We put that together at Headley Grange. Because we rented the Rolling Stones' mobile recording studio, we could relax and take our time and develop the songs in rehearsals. I do not remember too much about that song other than that and what I told you earlier about the opening being erased. I used to play the whole thing live on my electric 12-string.[2]

 

Since I've Been Loving You



We start off with a sweet guitar tone, and then an old school blues beat. Pagey knows how to play the blues.

I really like the addition of the organ, giving the song an extra layer. Plant brings it strong on the vocals, especially when the song climaxes at the end.

Pagey delivers a tasty solo at 3:39, and Bonzo goes from a simple beat and really mixes it up. This is a classic example of Zeppelin taking traditional blues, and updating it for the Rock era.

 

Since I’ve Been Loving You:
Beavis: Woh! Mr. Squeekers is on this track!
Butthead: Woh! Huh huh, that’s cool.
Beavis: Yeah, heh, heh, my pet rat is cool. And he bites!
Butthead: Yeah, like when he bit the mailman.
Beavis: Yeah.

Spoiler

This is a song for the ages, second track I heard off this album. I’m not the biggest fan of Zeppelin doing straight blues, and this is more what I want from them, taking the blues and totally reinventing it. This is one of their all time classics and genius on Jimmy’s part, along with every one else in the band.

 

Since I've Been Loving You

Opens with Jimmy playing soft and smooth C minor blues lines a la BB. Organ adds in some suspension notes. Smooth 12/8 blues groove. At :49 everything goes full bore on the G Major chord instead of typical minor chord. The major chord really adds more tension and the boys milk it in hard rock fashion. At :54 the chord goes to the bVI...A flat chord in a jazzy move that is similar to what BB King does in The Thrill is Gone. Pagey however takes it a step further with additional hard rock power chords following. At 1:00 its back to the C minor chord but then another tension chord of Bb and then to G in hard rock fashion. At 1:06 one of Jimmy's coolest turnarounds ever....D 7 to D flat Major 7 and then straight to the C minor instead of going back to the G again...a soft landing compared to the other hard sounding chords heard previous. Brilliant songwriting move and makes the song unique to many other blues. Fabulous hook. At 1:12 the verse starts and Robert sounds awesome as usual. Everything repeats and then at 2:26 Jimmy changes up the arrangement with suspensions in the chords to add lots of tension. At 3:06 Robert brings it to the boiling point and then the chorus like section enters and the turnaround follows. Jimmy's solo starting at 3:38 is mostly C minor based with some pentatonic hard rock flurries. Fantastic melodic lines and bends that are searing at 3:58 and 4:11. He follows at 4:13 with variations on the melodic hook heard in the intro. The melodic hook is doubled at 4:37 and drips with anguish. A break follows with some improvising. The chorus section follows and the turnaround. At 5:33 the verse returns and Jimmy plays incredible arpeggios in almost pop leaning but in tense repetitive fashion and the effect is brutal. The band is burning at this point and at 6:14 Robert takes it to the top with an anguished cry that sends chills up and down the spine. The chorus follows and Robert sounds spent but then one more time the chorus comes in at 6:45 with the band at the edge of the blues cliff. Jimmy plays some octave chords. At 7:01 the final turnaround dissipates the incredible energy and the song comes to an end.

One of my favorite songs by the band. A masterclass in how to mix the blues with hard rock. Amazing playing from everyone. Brilliant use of dynamics. Probably my favorite hard rock blues tune of all time. Off the charts musical intensity.

 

A tour-de-force of Hard Rockin' Soulful Blues. If Robert had listened to the Otis at Monterey LP side 'ad-nauseum' (bad choice of phrase) or on-repeat, this SIBLY kind of vocal is what I would expect of him. Different tone than the Big O, but an inspiring take. High Blues Drama. Can we be surprised that the performances and the mix are yet again 'complete and finished' takes - I think not - Page's producer's ear amd skill and the band's input and performance prowess prevail once again. Last thing not for me not to notice. Sure, there's the dynamic guitar soloing, lead vocal, and drumming, but the fuzzy and ominous bass pedal sound and playing right from the start, mixed center, adds an unmistakeable depth and gloomy suspense to the entirety of the piece. It would not be quite as purely cinematic without it.

 

Mind if I join? Now that I have gotten over my depression over the Maiden song by song thread ending, I am ready to jump in.

My experience with Zep is an interesting one. I was born in 65. When i was probably eight years old, and still listening to Yummy Yummy Yummy I’ve Got Love In My Tummy and Doo Doo Ron Ron, my grandmother started turning me on to real music. She had a cool house in Long Island, New York, with a stereo cabinet in the breakfast room with hundreds of albums and a speaker system that ran through whole house, with separate volume control in each room. I remember one day i was sitting on her bed while she was getting ready in the morning ( she spent what seemed like hours “putting on her face”) and she put on led zeppelin I. Babe I’m Gonna Leave You came on and, as I was listening and having my mind blown and my perception of what music could sound like ripped wide open, she poked her head out and said “ I love this, but i don’t like the way he says ‘babe, babe, babe’”. I got to hear a lot the album that day, she wore a lot of makeup! I remember the whole scene like it was yesterday, from 45 years ago.

So my Granny was a baller. She turned me on at very young age to the greats. She had all the Zep albums, the Stones, Pink Floyd, Tull, Moody Blues, and The Who. Tons of more obscure stuff too, like Argent and the Zombies, Wishbone Ash, Budgie, ELP, Mountain, Pat Travers, Jeff Beck and Thin Lizzy. She knew her stuff. She got me on my way to learning the classic rock stuff by the time I was 10. I spent hours playing her albums. I remember going to the record store with her so she could buy Some Girls by the Stones and I bought Chinatown by Thin Lizzy. I remember bringing my new copy of the Scorpions’ Blackout album to play for her; she looked at the cover and said “already got it”, then pulled out her copy of Lovedrive to boot! Cool ass granny!

So, back to Zep. My grandmother had the debut through Houses of the Holy. I played the hell out of those in her house and then went and bought all of them and then moved on through Physical Graffitti and Presence. I lived and breathed every song. A year or so later In Through the Out Door was released and, while a bit less enchanting, it still was a big deal. Then Bonham died.

I don’t want to try to do a song by song review of the debut and II, not from this far behind you guys, but I will give my thoughts on albums I and II in my next post and I will start addressing each song going forward. Suffice to say though that Zep was always one of the biggest bands in my life and I have my grandmother to thank for introducing me to one of the greatest bands ever.

 

What a cool grandma

Feel free to share thoughts on your favorite songs from the first two albums.

 

Zeppelin started going to Headley Grange for the fourth lp. (not the third) For the acoustic numbers (including an early version of The Rover) on the third lp the band rehearsed at a cottage called Bron-Yr-Aur.

Celebration Day was recorded in Olympic Studios.

 

A lot of sources (including Page) state that some of III was written, rehearsed and recorded at Headley Grange.

 

Wow, that sure is butchered. Only two of the eight songs were left in their proper position.

It looks like this was unique to Canada. The U.S. cassette version of this title appears to have always followed the LP track order:

Led Zeppelin - Houses Of The Holy
Led Zeppelin - Houses Of The Holy
Led Zeppelin - Houses Of The Holy

On the LP, using the song timings on Wikipedia, the first side is 1:39 longer than the second side. The rearrangement on the Canadian cassette referenced above makes the second side 24 seconds longer than the first side. So it looks like this was done to even up the two sides, in order to save money on the amount of tape needed in the manufacturing process.

That's very interesting. I had previously theorized that Atlantic loosened up on this practice a bit after Led Zeppelin II. Maybe that was only true in the U.S., and the Canadian division continued to be obsessed with evening out the two sides for a few more years.

 

Led Zeppelin (Debut): hearing this in 1973 or 1974 as an 8 or 9 year old boy who had up till then been listening to pop music on AM radio, this was mind blowing. Plant’s feral howling like a tomcat in heat, Page blasting away on the guitar and Bonham and Jones laying down that sexy back beat that made you want to get up and shake was pretty exotic stuff to this little boy’s ears.

I am surprised that Good Times Bad Times is not better liked here. Same for Communication Breakdown. To me and my young ears, I had never heard a song cook like these two. Fast and aggressive, great riffing, great soloing. Sure, maybe a little dated sounding now, but still, 40+ years later, I still crank either of them every single time I hear them.

The aforementioned two tracks, along with Babe I’m Gonna Leave You, Your Time is Gonna Come and How Many More Times are all classics in my opinion. As an epic, Dazed and Confused is a classic as well, but maybe suffers a bit in comparison to Babe I’m Gonna Leave You and How Many More Times, but I say that more on personal level, it’s clearly a landmark song, especially considering this is a debut album.

Black Mountain Side does its job as a nice mesmerizing palate cleanser but is a bit slight as a stand alone track. Don’t get me wrong, it’s essential to the flow of the album and I certainly wouldn’t skip it.

I Can’t Quit You and You Shook Me hardly move me. I get it, it’s heavy blues. I guess I just like things to move a little faster. They might make an appearance towards the bottom of a Zep playlist I make, or appear on a Zep blues-only playlist or a mixed blues playlist, as I do like them, but more often than not if I am in the mood for some Led Zeppelin these songs are not what’s on my mind.

The production now sounds a wee bit dated, although not bad compared to most stuff from this time period. That said Page really did develop a production style as he went along that makes most of zep’s material sound like it could have been recorded last week. In fact, having come fresh off the Maiden SxS thread, the producer of maiden’s releases from the 1990s forward could learn a thing or two about clarity and sharpness from Page’s work from almost 50 years ago.

Overall this is a mind blowing debut. I can’t imagine listening to Led Zeppelin and not hearing the six outright classics I site above. I mean hell, Black Mountain Side is just an acoustic interlude, so out of the 8 actual songs, 6 are all time hard rock classics to this day and the other two are well regarded by most fans (I am just not into that heavy blues style myself). There are shortly going to be Zep albums I like better, albums like Houses of the Holy and Physical Graffitti, which show the band incorporating a broader range of styles compared to the more limited range on display here, but as a statement of intent by a bunch of 20 year old guys breaking new ground in the hard rock category, this debut is pretty hard to fault.

 

Since I’ve Been Loving You

My favourite LZ blues number. Everything about this is great. The organ and drums lumber along providing an background for some of the greatest blues guitar and vocals. We’ve had a great explanation of how it’s all done. For me it’s just incredible how a rock song can be so unhurried but intense at the same time. As already mentioned, superbly recorded. A pinnacle of blues rock.

 

A moment that only Zep would have the balls to do: at the end of a totally mindblowing guitar solo, the song just stops. Then a blood-curdling lyric, an understated guitar lick. Then it stops again. By the time Plant croons "whoa my tears they fell like rainnnn" you don't know where the hell you are but are desperate to find out.

 

"Since I've Been Loving You"

Atmospheric altered blues that is laid back and intense at the same time. To me, kind of a throwback to the first album; if LZ III is the "Acoustic Album," then LZI is the "blues album." This may have been the LZ song I was listening to in '87 when my Mom walked in and said, "Is that Janis Joplin?" Referring of course to Plant's singing. Another song where JPJ plays the organ, making me secretly wish they would have permanently switched him to keyboards and gotten a new bass-only player. Maybe that's just the Deep Purple fan in me talking.

A few years ago I started reading interviews where Page complained about the squeaky bass pedal, which I'd never really noticed before, but now I can't un-hear it. At the same time, it makes them "human."

The first time I heard this song, I honestly thought it was going to end right after Plant sang "fell like rain."

I've never really cared for the TSRTS version, mostly because it seems to go on forever. But...you do get a lot of interesting audience reaction shots, including a cop who is standing there at 5:10 just staring...in awe or disgust I don't know.

 

The Song Remains the Same version is less than a minute longer than the studio version.

Love 'em both.

 

"Since I've Been Loving You" is another example of how Zep employed dynamics to create something special. They knew when to bring on the intensity, when to lay back and when to stop on a dime. The organ adds another dimension as well. Also, Page might not agree with me but the squeaky kick pedal fits in perfectly.

 

Page may be referring to the lap steel when he said slide guitar tuned to A? Or maybe a slide guitar part is on there as well? Songwriting credit on the tune is Jones/Page/Plant.. Page did a lot of nice work layering guitars on some of Jones;s riffs. Black Dog/In the light

 

What an awesome story, awesome grandmother. Thanks for sharing. I really enjoyed reading it.

 

Their source for "Since I've Been Loving You"

 

I forgot about this thread. Yes, everything so far on III is simply super.

 

Since I've Been Loving You
This is possibly the best blues song Led Zeppelin ever did. Jimmy Page's guitar licks are absolutely scorching, and Robert Plant takes the drama to new heights, making a blues song into a blues epic. The rhythm section is unrelenting in the way they build the backbone for the song's passionately despairing atmosphere. It's a standout track even in Led Zeppelin's amazing discography.

 

Led Zeppelin rocks! Here's proof.

 

Out on the Tiles



It's boogie time!

JPJ lays down a funky bass, and Bonzo is working his butt off - lots of fills, cymbal/hi-hat work and tempo changes.

To me, this song is about the rhythm section, with Page and Plant playing supporting roles. The guitar and vocals are definitely good, though.

Overall, a fun track that makes me want to shake my booty (in a silly Beavis and Butthead way).