Marklr
Well-Known Member
Led Zep were always the ultimate band in my eyes back in high school. Untouchable. Rock gods! Yeah...I used to see older lads with the name on their bags...and the "Zofo" symbols. My older brother had all the albums, so I got into a lot of their songs. Obviously, Stairway was the main one for me back then. I bought Led Zep 3 with the card disc in the cover. Some crackers on there. By the 3rd year high school, I was a master at writing "Led Zeppelin" on the class tables!I do not in truth have one favourite song. I do have a favourite album and I would be committing an egregious act not to start there, even if some of you are familiar with the sprawling affair known as Physical Graffiti by Led Zeppelin.
The album is so special to me that I have purchased it five times, first on vinyl; then a cassette found in a record shop sale that did not have a box so was cheaper than a blank cassette; and, ultimately, three compact disc versions, the last of which is the 40th Anniversary Deluxe Edition with a third disc of outtakes and alternate versions. This piece will content itself with just the original double.
To begin, let’s take a trip back to the first of those 40 years, when I was a schoolboy unfamiliar with Zep’s music. Oh, I knew the name and had often wondered what those four strange symbols older boys had etched onto their canvas rucksacks were - does anyone remember canvas rucksacks? I’d even read about them in my glossy Story of Pop book. However, they still seemed somewhat exotic and mysterious – an image they deliberately encouraged; plus, they steadfastly refused to release singles in the UK and we didn’t have the kind of FM radio stations that the US enjoyed.
What we did have was the dear Old Grey Whistle Test, a late night BBC2 TV programme whose hidden delights I was finally old enough to stay up for. In those pre-MTV days they didn’t have a plethora of music videos to choose from so they indulged in a bit of D-I-Y each week, which involved syncing up a newly released album track with old black and white movie footage, often from the silent-era.
Perhaps the most famous melding of grainy images and hot off the production line music was what drove me to be a Zep fan: the theme to that other BBC music show of some renown doesn’t count. And Trampled Underfoot I certainly was. Talk about heavy metal!
Truth be told, “Trampled” is about as funky as heavy rock can get, with its burbling Stevie Wonder inspired clavinet and once heard never forgotten R’n’B riff. Loosely inspired by Robert Johnson’s Terraplane Blues, the lyrics are not exactly lick my love pump (or squeeze my lemon), but they find Percy in lascivious mood. The song is also a vehicle for Page to experiment with backwards echo as he puts his wah-wah pedal to the metal; it is one of several tracks on the album that feature more guitars than a Fender factory.
I was smitten. A limited pressing of 5,000 singles was produced in the UK but only as a promo item for record stores, so the only way to get the song onto my record deck was to buy the double album upon which it resided.
The investment has paid dividends because I have played this album more than any other, but it is still a thrill to put it on, still a journey of discovery that I invite you to join me on.
Custard Pie kicks things off in buoyant style, with Page’s staccato guitar riff, John Paul Jones’ clavinet counterpoint and Bonzo’s funky beat. Robert Plant joins the fun with another contribution of sexual innuendo – not quite on a par with (Steel Panther’s) Eatin’ Ain’t Cheatin’ but a trip to Greggs might never be the same again. Jimmy’s guitar solo, played on an ARP synthesiser, and Plant’s harmonica break top things off nicely. Funk rock pioneers Mother Finest were so impressed, they stole the riff for their song Mickey’s Monkey.
A leftover from the Houses of the Holy sessions, The Rover wanders in to the Bonham backbeat that propels this underrated hard rocking, mid-tempo gem. JPJ roots the track and Page contributes a neat melodic solo.
In My Time of Dying slides into view slowly as Jimmy gets the bottle neck out and Percy pleads to the Lord for an easy death. Then, after almost four minutes, the track takes off, rising like a Jurassic behemoth awoken from it slumbers. Page gets urgent on the guitar. John Bonham picks up a couple of sledgehammers and straps on his lead boots to pound the life out of his reverbed Ludwig kit, delivering one of the most potent performances ever laid down by a drummer – some of the kick-drum work is extraordinary. Page is everywhere in the mix with his multitracked guitar mayhem, whilst John Paul Jones lithe bass fretless bass morphs its way through the ensuing extended jam that makes this reworking of the traditional gospel song “Jesus Make Up My Dying Bed” into a titanic modern blues and Zeppelin’s longest studio number.
The title track of Zeppelin’s previous album commences side 2’s proceedings. Houses of the Holy was deemed not to fit with the rest of the material on the album to which it gave its name. It is a breezy rocker that wafts along to the beat of a cowbell and pays homage to the temples of hard rock at which the band’s adoring disciples came to worship their rock gods.
After providing more double entendres than Carry on Up the Khyber, Trampled Underfoot motors into the sunset and the mood becomes ominous: we are driving to Kashmir as the iconic da da da, da da da ostinato riff, backed by the boom bam, boom bam of another unmistakable Bonzo beat, introduces an absolute monster, Godzilla on steroids, the most epic sounding rock track ever.
Kashmir’s lyrics, despite the setting in Pakistan, were inspired by a trip through the Sahara Desert that Page & Plant made in Morocco; the riff came from one of Page’s tuning sequences. The sound was filled out by the addition of horns and strings allied to JPJ’s mellotron. The music is mean, moody, majestic, middle eastern and mystical - grand but not grandiose. A David Lean movie of a song.
Kashmir would have made a fitting end to any album. The first disc is a superbly sequenced set of six songs that fit perfectly together. If you could bottle it, it would be essence of Led Zep. Physical Graffiti would be a great name for a perfume. The fun didn’t stop there though. The specific sessions for the album produced too much material for one disc but not enough for a double album so Zep raided their archives and introduced music leftover from previous albums.
And if you feel that you can't go on
And your will's sinking low
Just believe, and you can't go wrong
In the light, you will find the road
The second half is introduced by a song that John Paul Jones mostly composed on a synthesiser. The opening combination of synth and Page’s bowed acoustic guitar drone is a doomy almost bagpipe like affair, over which Plant slowly intones but the song has a cheerful chorus at its core and plays out to Page’s shining, multi-tracked, ascending guitars.
Named after the cottage in Machynlleth where Page & Plant wrote most of Led Zep III, Bron-Yr-Aur provides a pretty little acoustic guitar interlude before we leave the Welsh valleys for the coast and a song written at the aforementioned dwelling.
Down by the Seaside sets off as a rather un-Zep like thing, inspired by Neil Young, it is languid, folksy pop but switches into heavy rock mode and then back to chiming, charming pop.
Ten Years Gone lyrically deals with a young lady who gave Plant an early career ultimatum about sticking to his music or sticking with her. One of many highlights on Graffiti, this is notable for the many layers of guitar that Page applied to it. Eminent rock producer and record company mogul Rick Rubin described it thus: “A deep, reflective piece with hypnotic, interweaving riffs. Light and dark, shadow and glare. It sounds like nature coming through the speakers."
Night Flight chugs along to JPJ’s Hammond and Bonham’s energetic drumming.
The Wanton Song is another of those great funky rock songs that Zep excelled in. The stuttering riff is a classic, Bonham drums like James Brown dances and Plant wails like a wolf on heat. That sound you hear in the middle is the echo of Jimmy’s guitar arriving before he actually plays it!
Boogie With Stu does, as Zep jam with Ian Stewart, the Rolling Stones’ road manager and piano player. A love or hate moment for Zep fans.
Black Country Woman was recorded as live between sessions for “D’Yer Maker” in the garden of Mick Jagger’s Stargroves mansion. This acoustic blues stomp is a riposte to Plant’s wife, who had taken offence at Percy doing the horizontal bop with her younger sister. Engineer Eddie Kramer, famous for producing “Kiss Alive”, does a fine job of capturing what sounds like a WWII bomber as it flies overhead.
Fittingly our journey ends at the Riot (Hyatt) House in the sprawling City of the Angels, where some less than angelic teenage girls feature in this hard and heavy classic. Led by some more outstanding Page fret work, Sick Again is Plant feeling sorry for the underage groupies that would flock to Zep’s hotels. Bonham though shows no mercy as he pulverises his skins to conclude an album that leaves no doubt as to his genuine claims to be rock’s greatest drummer.
And this album stakes a claim to be the greatest double album ever to emerge from a studio (or several studios and a garden). It has none of the crap that afflicts The Beatles (White Album), so rather dumps all over that; it minces The Lamb Lies Down; wilts Guns n Roses’ Illusion; stamps on Elton’s yellow bricks; demolishes Floyd’s Wall; gives Layla the blues; and banishes The Stones’ Street to tax exile. Oh and even the sleeve is awesome.
I am not allowed to score my own choice but if I was, I would be turning the dial up to 11/10.
Right, I’m off for a Brandy and Coke ;-)
Anyway, as I got older, I got a bit bored with heavy rock and a lot of Led Zep songs..I can't remember this album as much, but I'm looking forward to it.
Good write up, by the way.