Led Zeppelin: All the Albums, All the Songs

336 Pages·2017·75.82 MB·English

by  Martin Popoff

LED
ZEPPELIN
ALL THE ALBUMS
ALL THE SONGS
MARTIN POPOFF

CONTENTS
Introduction
Led Zeppelin
II
III
Untitled
Houses of the Holy
Physical Graffiti
Presence
In Through the Out Door
Coda
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Complete Author Bibliography
Image Credits
Index
INTRODUCTION
“T
HE VERY FIRST TIME I HEARD ‘I WANNA
HOLD YOUR HAND,’ IN THE FRONT SEAT OF MY
DAD’S CAR—I WAS PROBABLY FOUR OR FIVE
YEARS OLD—IT WAS LIKE, I DON’T KNOW.
WHEN ‘NOWHERE MAN’ CAME OUT AND I WAS
ABOUT SIX OR SEVEN, THAT WAS THE SONG. IT
WAS LENNON’S VOICE, HIS MELODIES. IT’S JUST
THAT HIS VOICE CUTS THROUGH, AND WHAT HE
SAYS, IT’S JUST HARD TO EXPLAIN. HE’S
INCOMPREHENSIBLE TO ME, AND NOW THAT
HE’S DEAD IT’S MORE SO. LIKE I CAN’T EVEN
BELIEVE HE WAS HERE.”
Those are the amusing words of Eric Wagner,
lead singer for Chicago doom band Trouble,
and I’ve never forgotten them, ever since he
uttered them to me something like twenty
years ago. Now, I couldn’t give a damn about
the Beatles, but Wagner’s words are kind of how I feel about Led Zeppelin (the
Clash too, but that’s another matter)—I can’t even believe they were here.
There was this idea when I was growing up that Led Zeppelin existed on
another plane and that the usual rules didn’t apply to them. And now here I am,
presenting to you exactly the kind of book that I’ve long wanted to write about
Led Zeppelin. Why? Well, the biographies have all been done. And indeed, there
have even been two books done this way, song by song: one by Chris Welch and
one by Dave Lewis. But oddly, in the months before this project was proposed to
me by Dennis Pernu at Voyageur Press, I had been walking to work, listening to
my iPod, and thinking I should start writing deep analyses of Zeppelin’s songs
for something that I thought I would probably end up self-publishing.
This was all spurred by 2014’s deluxe reissues. Somehow I got it in my head
that I wanted to write all my thoughts about every last Led Zeppelin song: every
recording detail I could hear, my theories on the lyrics—basically album review–
length pieces on every song.
Now, for those who don’t know, this sort of project isn’t out of character or
out of my comfort zone. Apparently (and pathetically), by any tallies that I’ve
seen, I’ve written more record reviews than anybody ever throughout all space
and time—currently about 7,900. (I’m sure someone will have more one day, but
for now, my to-do list includes trying to get an official Guinness record for that.)
Chateau Marmont, West Hollywood, May 1969.
Anyway, that’s one reason that I suppose I was half-qualified to do this.
Another reason is that one of my jobs, besides writing books, has been to comb
album credits and listen very carefully to their corresponding recorded tracks for
their instrumentation and other performances—backing vocals, handclaps,
tambourine, you name it—on certain albums to help a nonprofit group in Canada
mete out certain accruing performance royalties. It’s a long story, but that
mete out certain accruing performance royalties. It’s a long story, but that
training, along with trying to figure out where the damned differences were on
these tracks that Jimmy was sticking on the deluxe editions’ companion discs …
well, that got me set down this path even before this project was proposed to me.
And once the idea was proposed, I still wasn’t completely onboard, knowing
that the songs had already been written about, in fact twice song-by-song (see
here) and then, of course, elliptically across all the other books about Led
Zeppelin. A good deal of information was already out there, much of it gleaned
from the same few interviews the band ever gave where they actually talked
about the songs (I’ve never seen more column inches spent on playing live
—zzz). But as I started thinking about it, I thought, hey, it was time for another
look, a new book, given new information that has arisen, given the unearthed
music included on new deluxe releases, given any extra trivia I could pick up
and disseminate from my own listening, and given the fact that, as an
opinionated reviewer, I hell an’ gone just wanted to say my piece.
Additionally, I knew I could provide a drummer’s perspective, which with
many bands wouldn’t matter much. But given the importance of Bonham to
Zeppelin, well, I hope that in this book I help a bunch of non-drummers
appreciate Bonzo more than they might have by pointing out his many genius
bits across the catalog. I also heeded the wise words of a few of my guitar and
bass buddies about a few things to ensure we were adding something to the body
of knowledge already out there.
Boston Tea Party, Boston, Massachusetts, January 1969.
And there was one other subtle reason for taking on this project. I got to
framing this book as essentially a listener’s guide to Led Zeppelin. I’ve lately
quite fancied the whole concept of a listener’s guide. In this day and age when so
much music is coming out all the time, and with hundreds of thousands of
albums completely accessible to us through streaming services, I increasingly
value an educated opinion as to what to listen to (and for) and the various
reasons why listening will be an enriching experience.
If you think about it, take some twenty-year-old kid and throw on a Led
Zeppelin record, and there’s a pretty good chance he or she is going to think it
sounds like crap. And bloody ancient. Underwritten or barely written. Heck,
these debates were going on even in the ’70s. I certainly never wanted to hear
another blues song as long as I lived, or as long as Tank and Raven and
Witchfinder General were lurking around the corner.
On sound alone (let’s forget how many guitar players think Page is sloppy),
yeah, by some measures, most Led Zeppelin albums sound, variously, distorted,
lacking in low end, midrange-y, flat. This is a long discussion that will be