I couldn’t hear Led Zeppelin for years.
I couldn’t hear them like I heard them when I first heard them.
It’s a band I overplayed to myself.
Not even a case of them being overplayed in general although they were. I overplayed them to myself.
Like a drug that loses its effect. You just stuff more of it inside of you trying to relive it like it was the first time.
I mainlined them so hard. I had to regurgitate them.
They aren’t just music. They are a substrate to other music.
You really can’t even figure out where they start and where they end.
But lately in life after all the twists and turns and all the bullshit I find myself coming back to them.
Coming back in the right way.
I forgot enough of it to be surprised all over again.
It’s guitar music. Unabashed unashamed utterly guitar music. There are quiet backed off overdubs that add things in the background.
It sounds like you are watching another fan have fun across the hall. You cant even hear what the part is. You can only hear what it is doing for itself.
There are parts having fun that you forgot to hear because you were listening to other parts having fun. Like. in minute 3 you realize, “holy shit. they have a keyboardist?”
How do you rate or review a song that taught you everything you know about music?
There are songs in which the root is not there but it is soloed on so hard that its somehow there.
There are songs so unruly and bombastic that they should not be. but they are played with so much conviction they are brought into existence.
There are solos that should not be but they are. He found a way. He got on top of all that volcano fire and surfed the shit.
Like he should be dead, but he’s not. He’s shredding.
There are riffs where there shouldn’t be riffs. It’s just a place where one chord goes to the next chord. but hey. LETS PUT A FUCKING RIFF ON THAT.
There are songs so straight ahead and in your face like “Communication Breakdown” and “Immigrant Song” But they aren’t there to say that’s what Led Zeppelin does. Those songs are there to say “That’s what Led Zeppelin does when it WANTS TO DO THAT.” Because then you have songs like “Rain Song” and “In the Light” where you need to listen like 20 times just to figure out what the FUCK they did.
There is a moment at minute 6 in “In the Light” after a long spacey intro and then the preposterous opening riff and then switching to the major chords. and then switching back into preposterousness where Robert Plant ups his level. You have to listen through the whole journey to understand the escalation that is happening. You can’t take the easy path to it.
“In love is Pain. It will devour you.” he says.
You had to work for that line.
The riff in that song is preposterous because Jimmy PAge resolves the riff by playing the minor seventh interval of the root note. HOW THE HELL DO YOU RESOLVE A RIFF WITH DISSONANCE !!!! with attitude that’s how. IT’s saying. THIS is resolution. then hitting the note so hard and so emphatically on the down that that’s it. We’re doing it. and it works.
If I could do anything with Led Zeppelin for the uninitiated it would be to voyeuristically watch a new listener be surprised by it like I was when I was a young teenager. I would vicariously and jealously sap off the energy of a newcomer just to get a taste of the old glory back.
I once played Led Zeppelin for 2.5 hours at a campfire in Joshua Tree in the early 90s.
I stood up in front of a house party in Danville in the 80s and air guitared all of LZ 3 and 4 to a completely fixated audience.
They were a barely controlled mess. They were an expertly navigated storm.
Girls would sing the words to “Tangerine” and drift off.
Then they would beg me to play it again and again. so they could drift off again and again.
I would learn the echoey accent parts in the back of “that’s the Way” and “All of my love” and just fucking marvel at how Page got that part to play over that backing. and how he knew it would work.
Somewhere in the early 00’s I added “Travelling Riverside Blues” to my sets. People would stare at me wide eyed and just say “HOW THE FUCK DID YOU DO THAT”
People who didn’t know the song loved it because they just LOVED the FUCKING SONG
I would play songs like “Rain Song” and “Nobody’s Fault but Mine” and “Babe I’m Gonna Leave You” because I knew they had crescendos that resolved at minute 3.
There is talk that Zeppelin conjured demons and ghosts. I believe it. There is an unknowable quality to the music. There’s an extra presence there in it. It’s still there. It doesn’t age. It was brought forth and it will never go away.
The following links are for your benefit. Listen to them very loudly.
Either in a room with loud obnoxious speakers or on a VERY GOOD set of Headphones.
Don’t half listen to this music. That is a fucking crime. Go home. Quit if you are going to do that.
Oh and fuck the lyrics. Just listen to how he wails. IT’s music music. There’s no message.
Actually there is a message, but the message is PLAYED to you. it is not SPOKEN or SAID or RAPPED. IT’s not verbal. It’s the pure conveyance of music. It’s parts that add to each other and then culminate and crash like waves. THAT’s the message. If you can’t hear it and feel it. You are closed. It’s about opening yourself I guess.
Get a good sound system dammit.
