The English poetic tradition is a long one, but in the vast annals of British verse – a lineage stemming from Shakespeare, Milton, Spencer, and Dryden on to Byron, Shelley, Wordsworth, and Coleridge – only a few scattered lines in a few select works have scaled the heights of linguistic incisiveness and rhetorical dexterity. Though many have attempted to capture the contradictory essence of the human condition in poesy, none, perhaps, have surpassed this:
You need cooooolin’
And baby I’m not fooooolin’
I’m gonna sennnnnd ya
Back to schooooolin’
What’s that? Don’t remember seeing this in your Norton Anthology of Literature? Guess I had a different copy.
*****
My father possessed, quite possibly, the blandest taste in music ever, but when I was eight years old, he threw me a pretty big curveball.
One day circa 1988, he strolled into a now defunct music chain known as The Wherehouse, a man on a mission, and he came out with a stack of … “little” records? “Mini” records? “Baby” records?
Until that moment, I had possessed zero conception of the 45rpm record. However, my father’s plan that day wasn’t so much to go home and listen to those 45s, but to record those 45s onto a cassette tape, which he could then play in our car. You see, he wasn’t much of an “album” guy. Singles were more his speed.
Middle of the road and completely random singles.
Here was a man who not only gravitated toward adult contemporary 80’s pop; he got excited about it. Among his purchases that afternoon, and thus, among the future tracks on his crudely organized mix tape, were Fleetwood Mac’s “Sara” and “Little Lies,” Laura Branigan’s “Gloria” and “Solitaire,” and Bill Medley and Jennifer Warnes’s “(I’ve Had) the Time of My Life.” Apparently on something of a Jennifer Warnes kick, he also bought the full Famous Blue Raincoat LP, not out of any admiration for Leonard Cohen’s songwriting, but because he couldn’t get enough of Warnes’s voice. He said he pretty much did his best to ignore the lyrics.
The man wasn’t aiming for any hipness points, but if the mix tape that ensued wasn’t his best work, I wouldn’t say it was his worst either. I remember being confused as to how two songs as different as “Sara” and “Little Lies” could have both been performed by, allegedly, the same band. They didn’t even sound like they were sung by the same singer! Something weird going on there.
But as weird as that was, it wasn’t half as weird as the last song he’d added to the mix tape. Because among that stack of ‘80s cheese, my father had also purchased a single by a band going by the name of “Led Zeppelin.”
Uh … did they know that they’d misspelled “Lead”? I was only eight years old, and even I knew that. To what end this artist had toyed with the absence of the letter “a,” however, was unclear.
He’d tacked it on to the very end of the tape, presumably because even my dad, not a man possessing the sharpest of running order skills, realized that it wouldn’t have worked in any other spot.
So, my father, my brother, and I are riding in the car, soaking in his latest cassette creation. After the Laura Branigan and Jennifer Warnes exits the scene, out comes this … it sounds like … an electric guitar? But it’s panned, like, way to the left? The guitar riffs in Huey Lewis and the News songs sure didn’t sound like this. Then the drums come in, like really mean and aggressive, and then chorus goes “Wanna whole lotta love,” which isn’t even a sentence, and it’s accompanied by this frightening, I want to say, “aerial swoop” from the left to right channel that’s … I guess that’s still a guitar? I’m ducking my head in the car just listening to it.
And then the Gates of Hades open up, and all these demons and sorcerers and warlocks are growling and gyrating and … what the hell happened to my father’s mix tape? Then, after one more chorus, the song goes completely silent, but … the song’s not over? The singer’s still going, by himself? Like, what are they doing? No ‘80s pop hit that I’d heard on the radio had dared to go completely silent unless the track was actually over. But these guys were going silent, and there was still more song after that. These guys were just … not obeying the rules. These guys were bonkers.
Who was this man behind the wheel, and what had he done with my father?
After the vocalist’s exhortation to “Keep-a-coolie baby” faded, and the sonic mayhem seemed to be over for good, my dad, turning around to catch his son’s expressions, could see that he had blown our tame, impressionable little minds.
“Pretty cool, huh?”
You know the old Sesame Street segment that went “One of these things is not like the others/One of these things just doesn’t belong”? The presence of “Whole Lotta Love” on this mix tape was exactly like that.
This reminds me of another incident that took place many years later: the time I found myself in the apartment of a religiously conservative couple living in Grass Valley, a small town in the Sierra foothills. Within their living room sat a CD tower that featured the most impressively safe, anodyne, inoffensive collection of 90’s albums that could have ever been gathered in one place: Jewel, Shania Twain, Matchbox Twenty, Dave Matthews Band, Celine Dion – we’re talking a soccer mom’s wet dream.
But there, smack in the middle of this CD collection, was a single spine that read “Big Black – Songs About Fucking.”
I had to rub my eyes. The presence of this one album somehow redeemed the entire collection. This CD tower was a work of art. I wouldn’t have changed a thing.
That’s what the appearance of “Whole Lotta Love” at the end of my father’s mix tape felt like. (Note: although the original 1970 single release of “Whole Lotta Love” was famously edited, the version on the late ‘80s pressing my father purchased was definitely the full-length album version.)
My brother and I dug it, all right. It didn’t make us dig the wimpy dentist office schlock that had preceded it any less, but we dug this strange outlier too.
One person who did not dig it, sadly, was our mother, who complained about its inclusion on the tape so insistently that my father caved in and wiped it off, only for the subsequent howls of protest from my brother and me at its unceremonious removal to become so deafening that he added it back on. From that point forward, I believe my father’s solution to the dilemma was simply this: whenever my mother was in the car with us, he would press “stop” on the tape before it reached “Whole Lotta Love,” and whenever she wasn’t, he would let it play through.
Now, seeing how much his two children enjoyed the opening track from Led Zeppelin II, did my father then go out and purchase Led Zeppelin II for his children to hear?
He did not.
Did he acquire any other Led Zeppelin albums, or even one additional Led Zeppelin song?
He did not.
I do recall him making one more feeble attempt to do so. On our next trip to The Wherehouse, he came out ranting in disbelief after having asked the clerk if they were selling the 45 for some song called “Stairway to Heaven,” only to be informed that “Led Zeppelin had never released ‘Stairway to Heaven’ as a single.”
“I can’t believe that was never a single!” he shouted to his uncomprehending offspring as he pulled out of the parking lot. This, of course, to most casual rock fans, is common knowledge, but to call my father’s fandom “casual” would be like calling Zeppelin’s lyrics “slightly sexual.” Perturbed at not being able to purchase “Stairway to Heaven” as a single, did he at least purchase Led Zeppelin IV?
He did not.
Alas, that tape’s turn in the car stereo didn’t last more than a couple of months, and both “Whole Lotta Love” and the artist behind it slipped under the corroded seat cushions of our Chevy Chevette, the entire experience to be filed away in my brain as “That time my dad accidentally stumbled upon something that seemed a little too cool for him.” Maybe this was OK. Maybe “Whole Lotta Love” is the kind of song you need about ten years to fully digest anyway.
Then, as a pre-teen, I discovered the Beatles, and oldies radio. Then, as a teenager, I discovered classic rock radio, but despite my childhood enthusiasm for “Whole Lotta Love,” whenever I caught bits of “Rock and Roll,” “D’yer Maker,” or “Fool in the Rain” as I flipped through stations, they weren’t quite doing it for me. I somehow formed the impression in my mind that Led Zeppelin were a band that “other people” listened to. Like, people who listened to AC/DC or Aerosmith, or who went to bars and drove trucks or something.
Lyrically, they seemed frivolous, irrelevant, pre-pubescent. Pink Floyd, the Who, Elton John … here were British guys singing about the challenges that I was dealing with as a nerdy, angst-ridden teen. Led Zeppelin were singing about … “Hey hey mama, say the way you move, gonna make you sweat, gonna make you groove”? What did that have to do with anything?
Nevertheless, in my senior year of high school, when I began to take my budding rock scholarship more seriously, I knew I couldn’t retain any credibility without listening to at least one Led Zeppelin album in full. Thus, upon the recommendation of the All Music Guide (which awarded the first six Zeppelin albums five stars, but gave their “album pick” to Led Zeppelin IV), I checked out a CD copy of IV (AKA Untitled AKA Zoso AKA Hermit With Sticks) from the library. IV seemed to be the “gateway” Zeppelin album – the one that would tell me whether I was going to dig the rest of the catalog or not.
Eh.
I played it a couple of times, but aside from “Stairway” and “When the Levee Breaks,” I wasn’t really feeling it. I think I’d heard almost the entire album on the radio by that point anyway. But upon telling my fellow budding rock scholar partner-in-crime AKA “Alternative Boy” (see my Velvet Underground & Nico essay) that I had given IV a shot, he offered to loan me his cassette copy of Led Zeppelin II as well.
Maybe it was the “Whole Lotta Love” nostalgia. Maybe it was my incessant fondness for all things 1969. All I knew was … I was feeling Led Zeppelin II.
*****
It is often written, in the grand halls of rock and roll lore, that the best Led Zeppelin album is IV, and while I understand why it is considered to be so, after many years of reflection, I have a few thoughts.
Never been into “Four Sticks” all that much. Never been into “Black Dog” all that much either. Although it was supposedly inspired by (Peter Green-era) Fleetwood Mac’s “Oh Well,” “Black Dog” has always reminded me of the kind of call-and-response chant that a sergeant and his recruits might engage in during basic training. Why would I want R. Lee Ermey screaming “You are nothing but unorganized grab-asstic pieces of amphibian shit!” at me while I’m trying to relax and listen to a Zeppelin album?
But I get it. IV is where Zeppelin smeared themselves with the ointment of godly omnipotence, with the closing pair of “Going to California” and “When the Levee Breaks,” in particular, giving off the vibe of a band bravely venturing off into realms from which no band returns. Frankly, I didn’t get that into IV until I acquired it on vinyl in college. I think I needed to hold it between my fingers like an archeological relic. Only on my living room stereo did Bonham’s drums truly overwhelm. Only on record, with proper gaps in between, did each song feel like its own chapter in a novel. Only as “Stairway” leisurely led the needle toward its ultimate destination at the center of the disc did I feel the full import of the journey.
I still preferred II.
“Bloated” is a term with negative connotations, but a kinder word doesn’t quite come to mind as I attempt to describe the additional sluggishness and lethargy that I sense in subsequent Led Zeppelin albums. They got a little more bloated. Not bad, just … bloated.
While I can appreciate the melodies, songcraft, and eclecticism present throughout Houses and the Holy and Physical Graffiti, I can’t help but feel that Page’s riffs on tracks like “No Quarter” and “Ten Years Gone” drag just a little too far behind the beat for my taste, as if he’d overestimated his quaalude tolerance on those particular evenings. I’ve heard it said that “The Song Remains the Same” charges out of the gate. But does it? Does it, really? “Boogie with Stu”? Do I have to? Eleven minutes of “In My Time of Dying”? I think my attention span “died” right around the six-minute mark, but no matter. “The Crunge”? “Custard Pie”? “Trampled Under Foot”? Gee, you know what Led Zeppelin really needed? John Paul Jones jamming on clavinet. Compared to II, everybody just sounds kind of … tired to me. I need more zip in my Zep.
But the Led Zeppelin on II is feisty. This Led Zeppelin is hungry, sprightly, zesty. They’re gerbils gnawing at the cage.
The circumstances behind the album’s recording may have contributed to the zestiness. As Stephen Davis explains in Hammer of the Gods, “Led Zeppelin II was the product of an English band’s insane life on the road, written in snatches in motel rooms, dressing rooms, and studios all over North America.” Engineer Eddie Kramer elaborates:
We mixed it at A&R Studios in two days on a 12-channel Altec console with two pan pods, the most primitive console you could imagine. The tapes were from everywhere; ‘Whole Lotta Love’ had been recorded in Los Angeles, some were from London, Robert had done voiceovers on the run in Vancouver in a studio with no headphones, and some, like ‘What Is and What Should Never Be,’ I had recorded myself in New York in obscure studios like Groove Sound and Juggy Sound, any place we could scrounge studio time. We overdubbed a lot, and recorded solos in hallways.
I feel like this kind of approach could have resulted in two outcomes: 1) an incoherent, Self-Portrait-style mess; 2) a streamlined, efficient fireball teeming with drive and vitality. Basically, when you’re hot, you’re hot. Play a show, jump into the studio, roll the tape, get on the bus, bang some chicks, play another show. Sometimes you don’t want to overthink it. There’s also something about the sound of a band that has juuust achieved stardom but hasn’t quite achieved superstardom. Having whetted everyone’s appetite with the debut, they were motivated to take advantage. “You thought that first album was heavy?”
Nowhere is it required, of course, to pick a favorite Led Zeppelin album, but I feel like the people who prefer any of the others to II and IV need to make their case better. The problem with Led Zeppelin III is that the best song on the album … isn’t even on the album! Seriously, who decided to release “Hey, Hey, What Can I Do?” as a B-side? One joint too many for manager Peter Grant that day.
The problem with Led Zeppelin I is that, while the production and the instrumental chemistry are present right from the get-go, the songwriting is a bit too spacey and nebulous for me at this stage. In other words, the band sounds stoned. Really stoned. Although I enjoy the whole platter from start to finish, I kind of feel like I’m wandering through a laboratory of ideas. I need my riffs. Where are my riffs?
Ah, Led Zeppelin II. Here are my riffs.
If Led Zeppelin were the Humphrey Bogart of guitar riffs, then II is like Rick’s speech at the end of Casablanca. So many quotable riffs, all in one place. Each one’s a pop culture reference.
And don’t tell me their songwriting didn’t grow tighter, more concise, more focused. And don’t tell me this isn’t where Jimmy Page became the undisputed master of knob-twiddling. Thus, despite II clearly stemming from the same bluesy core as the debut, I feel like Page figured out how to add a more ethereal layer of pop crispness to the mix, which keeps the riffs buzzing along without everything descending into a turgid stew of hard rock bluster.
On II, I see Page at his peak in terms of imbuing the production side of the equation with an abundance of … imagination. What fans of the later albums might see as “gimmicky” I just see as lively. True, perhaps mid-period works like Houses and Graffiti boast a greater stylistic adventurousness, but for me, II boasts a greater sonic adventurousness. There’s always this element of chaos and instability that’s constantly threatening to upend the proceedings.
And who knew chaos and instability could sound so … sexy?
*****
Scary sex. I think that’s “Whole Lotta Love” in a nutshell. It’s like, “We could’ve gotten by with a little less love. We didn’t need that much love. You overdid it.”
Herein, I think, lies the difference between Hendrix and Zeppelin. Hendrix, for all his freakiness, essentially preached a utopian vision. “If I don’t meet you no more in this world, I’ll meet you on the next one, and don’t be late.” The man was a child of the ‘60s. But Led Zeppelin were ‘60s slayers. The good times were over. “Good Times, Bad Times”? How about bad times? I’m afraid all those hippie chicks who’d just been sexually liberated were about to get more than they bargained for.
(Quick aside: one day in college, two friends and I were hanging out discussing music. When the subject of Led Zeppelin came up, one friend scoffed, stating, “Led Zeppelin – pfft. Trailer park Hendrix.” After a suitable pause, my other friend said, “Trailer park Hendrix … that actually sounds kinda good!”)
Perhaps it’s a bad idea, in this day and age, to quote so liberally from Stephen Davis’s somewhat-discredited Hammer of the Gods (said Page: “I opened it up in the middle somewhere and started to read it, and I just threw it out the window”), but given that Davis employs metaphors even more grandiose and overwrought than mine, I cannot help myself. I considered checking out a more recent (and presumably more accurate) biography such as 2008’s When Giants Walked the Earth, but given that its Wikipedia article states that “Page threatened to sue its author over the book’s contents,” I figured I might as well stick with Hammer of the Gods. Regarding “Whole Lotta Love,” Davis writes:
The track then began to roar like a nuclear-powered Panzer division coming down the autobahn at 120, before Robert’s sirenesque vocal, begging for the most carnal style of love, falls into the tracks famous “middle section.” This was an abstract (but carefully rehearsed) gyre of sound – clamoring trains, women in orgasm, a napalm attack on the Mekong Delta, a steel mill just as the plant shut down … The lyrics were plain … But it was Robert’s voice, not what he was saying, that was stark and craven. His boiling, wordless gallop into the night was like some mad, Indo-Celtic mantra that wouldn’t go away.
Something like that.
But in America, late in 1969 and through 1970, “Whole Lotta Love” was an emergency telegram to a new generation. In its frenzy of sex, chaos, and destruction, it seemed to conjure all the chilling anxieties of the dying decade … For the next decade Led Zeppelin would be the unchallenged monarchs of high school parking lots all over America. In forsaking England Led Zeppelin became an American band for all practical purposes, and America would embrace them in strange ways. In Vietnam that year, “Whole Lotta Love” was an actual battle cry. American soldiers and marines bolted eight-track stereos onto their tanks and armored personnel carriers and rode into battle playing the song at top volume.
Well, I guess that means at least they liked it? “Ride of the Valkyries” … “Whole Lotta Love” … same difference. OK, now it’s my turn.
Note how the very first noise on the Brown Bomber is not, as one might assume, Page’s infamous riff, but rather a brief, impish exhalation from Plant, a misleadingly benign audio gesture, cheekily hinting at the mayhem to come while serving as a woefully inadequate warning. And then comes the riff.
But see, with Led Zeppelin, you’re never getting “just” a riff. You’re getting a riff along with magical pixie dust. The riff’s on the left channel, but the reverb bounces forcefully into the right channel. This riff is traveling somewhere. It’s not just sitting there picking its nose.
As if the riff weren’t threatening enough to make me hand over my lunch money, John Paul Jones doubles up the riff on the bass, like the sidekick who suddenly shows up behind the school bully. That’s OK, guys, I wasn’t hungry today anyway. Plant’s entrance? Kind of scary. Bonham’s entrance? Kind of scarier.
But no, it’s the dive-bombing electric razor from hell that appears at the 0:37 mark, the one that buzzes across the stereo channels and almost shaves my eyebrows clean off, that’s scary. That’s when you know you’ve made a wrong turn at Albuquerque. Basically, I love songs that sound like they’re attacking me.
No big surprises in the second verse and the second chorus. That’s a relief; maybe this isn’t going to be so rough after all. Still, I suspect I’ve been lulled into a deceptive semblance of order. At 1:18, Page’s guitar succumbs once more to the Doppler Effect and … hmm.
That’s it? Only an 80-second song? Pretty good 80-second song though. Hold on, I think I hear some stuff …
Hi-hat. Ride cymbal taps. Uncomfortably distant congas. And then …
What is that … THING?
Where are we?
Let me out, for the love of God, let me out!
Is that, like, the sound of the Ark of the Covenant cracking open? Zeus having indigestion? Jimmy Page goofing around with a theremin? All of the above?
Whose idea was this whole “freakout middle section” anyway? Where was the precedent for it? Other bands would have figured, “Well, we’ve got the riff, we’ve got the chorus, just do a solo and we’re good, right?” Oh, there’s no solo. There’s no flute interlude. There’s not even an instrument playing a melody as some sort of through-line. Like, what is this? Sometimes, you’ve got to think outside the box.
Trippiest and/or most comical Robert Plant vocal highlights during the “freakout” section:
2:02 – “Ah ah ah AH AH AH AH!” The sound of Plant approaching orgasm, or stifling an impending sneeze?
2:20 – Hold on, what’s that in the distance? It sounds like a faint “ghost” Plant, trapped in an alternate dimension, floating around shouting “No! No!” Do we need to go rescue him or something?
2:43 – Zeus’s spleen calms down just long enough to give Plant room to let rip with a mighty “LAAAAWWW-AAAWWWDD!” (or is that a slurred “love”?) followed by a marginally softer “Laaww-uuh-aaw-uuh-ohh-uhh-ohh” that woozily swirls across the stereo spectrum, presumably delivered while Plant was swinging from the end of a massive rope?
I feel like Page and engineer Eddie Kramer found a crate in the back of the studio labeled “Cool Effects to Mess Around With,” and they just emptied the whole crate. And I don’t mean “cool” in the hipster Velvet Underground sense where you’d step outside and smoke a cigarette, more like “cool” in the “13-year-old boy watching Mad Max” sense where you’d turn to your buddy next to you and say “Duuuuude.” Examples:
3:05 – A unison THWOMP THWOMP emanating from Page’s guitar and Bonham’s kick drum swiftly ends the freakout party, much to the chagrin of the ghoulish hordes who were presumably having a ball, but that’s not the coolest part. Neither is Page’s riffage that follows, although that’s pretty cool. No, the coolest part is how, after each THWOMP THWOMP, Bonzo’s hi-hat somehow grows louder underneath Page, then quiets back down upon the return of the THWOMP THWOMP, as if being “shushed,” only to grow louder again in the void.
Duuuuude.
4:00 – The last of Page’s swan-diving guitar projectiles disappears over the horizon. Wait a minute, I feel like we’ve been here before. The last time this happened, things got a little screwy. But what could be up their sleeve this time? I detect a faint sound in the distance. Another Zeus belch? Another Plant sneeze? No, it’s even more terrifying. But … but …
It’s impossible.
It’s the echo of Plant’s vocal arriving … before Plant’s actual vocal.
Duuuuude.
4:19 – The candidates for “Greatest Scream in Rock History” are many, from Little Richard’s inaugural “Oww!” in “Tutti Frutti” and Jim Morrison’s Oedipal “UAH-HUA-HUA-YEAHH-COME-ON-BAEAE!” in “The End” to John Lennon’s fetal “Mama don’t GOOOOO-OOOOO!” at the conclusion of “Mother” and, of course, Roger Daltrey’s concerningly piercing “YEEEEAAAAAHHH!!” at the 7:44 mark in “Won’t Get Fooled Again.”
Perhaps it merely benefits from the carefully choreographed setting, the grand “BOM BOMMMM” followed by a pensive silence, but to my ears, none of those screams quite sound like they’re navigating the entire circumference of the earth the way Plant’s “LUUUUUU-OOOO-UUUU-VVVV …” toward the end of “Whole Lotta Love” does. If someone made an animated music video to go along with “Whole Lotta Love,” the only appropriate way to animate this moment in the song would be to zoom in on Plant’s comically jiggling tonsils as the sides of his mouth swallow the entire frame.
4:58 – I could point out all sorts of goodies here, from the addition of heavily reverbed congas that sound like Zeus’s testicles bumping against each other, to Plant’s (presumably) ad-libbed insertion of every Howlin’ Wolf song title that comes to mind, to Page sneakily moderating one note in the middle of the riff with a tiny octave jump, to Plant’s scholarly “Hey! Ho! Hey! Ho!,” but the highlight for me is what sounds like Plant sitting on the toilet pinching a particularly violent loaf: “EUUUUGGGG-UHHHH.” Personally, psyllium husk seems to help with that.
5:16 – When, for the second time in a row, Plant utters the insightful remark, “A-keep it coolie baby,” suddenly, like a fidgety demon that had been crouching in the crevices of the staircase waiting for its moment to strike, the “ghost” Plant reemerges, at almost twice the volume as “lead singer” Plant, and shouts a fragment of the word “baby” that appears to be missing the letter B. To quote Hunter S. Thompson, “Holy Jesus what are these God damn animals?”
Oh, and the riff rocks. It all rocks. Even the tambourine rocks. Seriously, I didn’t even notice the tambourine on “Whole Lotta Love” (it’s mainly on the third verse) until I listened to the Live at the BBC version. Those versions tend to be bare-bones, quasi-live recordings, with only minimal overdubs, and yet somebody at the BBC session that day realized, “Well yeah, but we have to put the tambourine on there.”
*****
Do you want to be the song that follows “Whole Lotta Love”? Do you? It’s like the Who and Hendrix arguing over which act was going to follow the other at the Monterey Pop Festival. Seems like the kind of slot you’d want to avoid.
And yet, “What Is and What Should Never Be” remains unconcerned.
Because “What Is and What Should Never Be” understands that the way to follow up scary sex is with dorky fantasy novel sex.
I love songs that begin in medias res. “And if I say to you tomorrow …” But … but … what did he say before that? Page sedately strums some electric rhythm, Jones languidly noodles around on his bass … guys, is this a … is this a ballad?
Well, yes and no:
A-catch the wind
See it spin
Sail away
Leave today
Way up in the sky
Hey whoa!
“Hey whoa”? What is this, Keanu Reeves? But seriously, it’s like the band were quietly tiptoeing their way into Smaug’s lair during the verse, only to draw their swords and slay the waking dragon on the chorus. And the way the chorus slides back into the verse, with that heavily phased “Ooooooh” descending over the skies … it’s like the sound of the entire band being sucked away and summoned to some remote, faraway kingdom.
“What Is and What Should Never Be,” at the very least, lives up to the duality of its title. The Pixies thought they were special with that whole “soft/loud” dynamic thing? This one is soft, loud, and at least ten times as medieval. The highlight might be the manner in which Page’s solo mimics Plant’s delivery to a tee, starting out soft and seductive, like he’s petting the virginal princess’s hair and taking her dainty hand in his, only to toss her onto the palatial bed and whip it out before she’s even untied the laces of her corset.
And then comes the critical third verse, where the battle-hardened elders of Lothlorien are about to reveal their ancient secret.
“So if you wake up with a sunrise …”
Uh-huh?
“And all your dreams are still as new …”
We’re ready to decipher the riddle …
“And happiness is what you need so bad …”
This last critical kernel of wisdom will help us cross through the caves of Moria in one piece, if you can just tell us what it is …
“Well GIRL, it’s UHHHLAUUZZZEEUGGHHYeahhh!”
Damn it, Plant. We were counting on that lyric.
Then comes a gong (?!), a brand new riff from Page that I comically picture the rest of the band chasing from the left speaker to the right speaker as if they were attempting to swat a fly, and a bonus indecipherable Plant ad-lib in the fade-out: “Everybody I know seems to know me well but they zeh bonna goe gonna booh like hell!” Uh, the connection got a little fuzzy, would you mind repeating that?
In other words, if “Whole Lotta Love” wins the title of “Best Opening Track (with the Best Theremin-Enhanced Freakout Section and Best Pronunciation of the Word ‘Coolin’) Ever”, then “What Is and What Should Never Be” wins the title of “Best Second Track (That Successfully Shifts the Mood without Killing the Mood and Featuring Even More Impressively Garbled Lyrics) Ever.” In his All Music review of the song, Bill Janovitz calls particular attention to “perhaps the only appropriate use of a gong in rock music, cashing in the band’s ‘use gong once free’ card.”
Well, here comes the opening seconds of “The Lemon Song,” and … I fear Janovitz may have spoken too soon.
I mean, once you’ve already paid to bring the gong into the studio, you might as well get your money’s worth, right?
To those hoping that “The Lemon Song” would be a song about lemons, I’ve got some bad news. But for those hoping that II’s third track would kick ass in a raunchy, flamboyant, and yet intriguingly lean and minimalist way, then I’ve got some good news. Here, I think more so than anywhere on the debut, is kind of where Led Zeppelin picked up the blues off the laundry pile of American music as if it were a dishrag, and proceeded to mop the floor with it.
Speaking of “floor” …
Back in my college radio days, a fellow DJ and I found ourselves hunting through the record stacks one night looking for “authentic blues” songs to play on our show – presumably to make us come across as far more hip and informed about genres outside of rock than we were – when we plopped the needle down on a random Howlin’ Wolf number called “Killing Floor.”
A funky guitar riff came blasting in from the left channel. Hmmm … sounded a little … familiar …
A gravely-voiced singer entered: “I should have quit you, a long time ago/I should have quit you babe, a long time ago.”
Mutually raising our left eyebrows, we turned to each other: “Gee, wonder where I’ve heard this before …”
So, all right, Led Zeppelin took a bit of “inspiration” from here and there. They also, to many music scholars’ consternation but to my own personal amusement, neglected to give songwriting credit to the musicians who had “inspired” them, at least on the albums’ initial release. Given the awkward racial dynamics involved (i.e. the long history of white musicians borrowing from black musicians and making way more money than black musicians ever did), I wouldn’t necessarily excuse Zeppelin from your moralistic finger-wagging. It’s never been crystal clear to me why the band did this. I’m guessing some combination of … arrogance and laziness? Upon being asked about it, Plant replied, “At the time, there was a lot of conversation about what to do. It was decided that … well, you only get caught when you’re successful.” Wait a minute. Didn’t II have something like advance orders of 400,000 copies? I think they could have guessed that the album was going to be successful.
But here’s the thing. All blues pretty much rips off other blues. There are twelve bars, a basic chord progression, and … what else are you gonna do? To those with a fascination for music publishing courtroom drama, I recommend scrolling through the Wikipedia page for “Got My Mojo Working,” which may or may not have solely been the brainchild of McKinley Morganfield (AKA Muddy Waters) after all. Highlight from the judge’s ruling: “MOJO is a commonplace part of the rhetoric of the culture of a substantial portion of the American people. As a figure of speech, the concept of having, or not having, one’s MOJO working is not something in which any one person could assert originality, or establish a proprietary right.” Putting that law degree to work, I see.
But we could play this game all day. Zeppelin may have taken the “squeeze my lemon” line from Robert Johnson’s “Traveling Riverside Blues” … except that Robert Johnson may have already taken it from Arthur McKay’s “She Squeezed My Lemon”! Plenty of lemons being squeezed all the way around.
So in a sense, perhaps Zeppelin were merely carrying on a fine blues tradition. Aside from the fact that, instead of former sharecroppers roaming around the South lifting a lyric or two from each other, these were Atlantic recording artists whose prior album had just hit the top 10. On the other hand, Led Zeppelin is also how nerdy white guys like me came to discover Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf, Sonny Boy Williamson, Little Walter, etc. in the first place.
Also, Led Zeppelin stole from white guys too. I remember first hearing Muddy Waters’s 1962 track “You Need Lovin’” and thinking that it didn’t sound all that much like “Whole Lotta Love,” but then I heard the Small Faces’ 1966 cover of “You Need Lovin’,” and realized that, uh, Steve Marriott’s vocal phrasing sure sounded a whole lot more like “Whole Lotta Love.” Then there’s the Jake Holmes/“Dazed and Confused” thing, the Anne Bredon/”Babe I’m Gonna Leave You” thing, and … honestly, none of it bothers me all that much.
Years ago, I was reading a message board, and I don’t remember the exact topic, but it was along the lines of “Led Zeppelin and the Blues,” and one of the comments stated something to the effect of “It’s interesting how, ever since the 1950s, thousands of acts have been slavishly imitating a very narrow idea of ‘the blues,’ and yet Led Zeppelin, one of the only bands to do something completely fresh and new with it, is the one that people complain about?”
I’m with that guy. Sure, Zeppelin should have given songwriting credit, but them failing to do so, for me at least, doesn’t tarnish the artistic achievement. I wouldn’t even call the end product of their flagrant borrowing to be “rip-offs” so much as reinventions. Calling “Whole Lotta Love” a “cover” of “You Need Love” or calling “The Lemon Song” a “cover” of “Killing Floor” is like calling Apocalypse Now a “cover” of Heart of Darkness. They brought way too many of their own ideas to the table. In other words, how many other bands, when squeezing someone else’s lemons, generated this quality of lemonade?
I’ll tell you what Howlin’ Wolf’s “Killing Floor” doesn’t have. It doesn’t have the opening riff that “The Lemon Song” has.
I’m talking about arguably the dirtiest, sluttiest riff in all the realms of Zeppelindom, although it does bear some resemblance to the opening riff of Hendrix’s “Voodoo Child (Slight Return)” (the wah-wah heavy riff before the drums kick in). I can practically feel this one undressing me with its leering eyes. There’s even that little “catch” at the end that makes it sound like it’s momentarily getting its coat stuck on the front gate.
I’ve never understood why some people refer to this version of Led Zeppelin as the one that’s “bloated,” not the later versions that sounded like they could barely lift themselves up off the mattress. Listen to the blistering speed they reach when they slip into those two “double-time” sections; it’s almost a bit, dare I say … proto-punk? Here’s what constitutes the entire instrumentation of “The Lemon Song”: lead guitar on the left channel, bass guitar and drums in the center channel, and, every once in a while, an additional guitar overdub on the right channel. That’s it. “The Lemon Song” is essentially a live recording. They rolled the tape and let the mayhem ensue.
Speaking of mayhem: Hammer of the Gods tells of several “incidents” that took place during Zeppelin’s various 1969 tours of the U.S., and … we’ve put the children to bed, yes? Although some of this behavior might not “fly” today and would probably get them cancelled, honestly, it all sounds fairly consensual to me, so who am I to judge? I’m referring to everything from Page tying up and whipping a groupie named Miss Cinderella to Bonzo and tour manager Richard Cole becoming intimate with a woman named Dahlia the Dog Act, an enterprise which apparently involved fried bacon, baked beans, and her Great Dane (?).
Indeed, Richard Cole, down-on-his-luck recovering junkie at the time of the book’s mid-‘80s publishing, seemed to have taken being interviewed for Hammer of the Gods as the perfect opportunity to relive his glory years and spin an elaborately X-rated yarn or two. I present to you the mother of these yarns, commonly known as “The Shark Episode”:
Back at the hotel the band started drinking. Richard Cole says that what happened later was his fault. “The sharks thing happened at the Edgewater Inn in Seattle. How it came about is that in 1968 I was with Terry Reid, supporting the Moody Blues in Seattle, and their road manager told me the band should stay at the Edgewater Inn, because there’s a tackle shop in the lobby and you can fish right out the window of the hotel. I said, ‘Go on, fuck off, ya cunt.’ He said, ‘Come on, Richard, I’m not kidding, it’s true.’ So the next time I was in Seattle was with Led Zeppelin and Vanilla Fudge, and we started to catch sharks out the window. By this time the tours were more and more risqué, and you could do what you liked with the girls who showed up at the hotel. For me, that second fucking Led Zeppelin tour was the fucking best time of my life. THAT was the one. We were hot and on the way up, but no one was watching too closely. So you could fucking PLAY. And these birds were coming up to my suite wanting to fuck, and me and Bonzo were quite serious about catching these fish.’ What happened next isn’t really clear. One girl, a pretty young groupie with red hair, was disrobed and tied to the bed. According to the legend of the Shark Episode, Led Zeppelin then proceeded to stuff pieces of shark into her vagina and rectum.
Richard Cole says it didn’t happen that way. ‘It wasn’t Bonzo, it was ME. Robert and Bonzo didn’t know ANYTHING, they were kids. It wasn’t shark parts anyway: it was the NOSE that got put in. Yeah, the shark was ALIVE! It wasn’t dead! We caught a big lot of sharks, at least two dozen, stuck coat hangers through the gills and left ‘em in the closet … But the TRUE shark story is that it wasn’t even a shark. It was a red snapper and the chick happened to be a fucking redheaded broad with a ginger pussy. And that is the truth. Bonza was in the room, but I did it. Mark Stein [of Vanilla Fudge] filmed the whole thing. And she LOVED it. It was like, ‘You’d like a bit of fucking, eh? Let’s see how YOUR red snapper likes THIS red snapper!’ … I’m not saying the chick wasn’t drunk, I’m not saying that ANY of us weren’t drunk. But it was nothing malicious or harmful, no way! No one was EVER hurt. She might have been HIT by a shark a few times for disobeying orders, but she didn’t get hurt.’”
Well that’s reassuring. I’m sorry, but when the anecdote literally starts changing mid-anecdote, call me skeptical. Anyone else find this one a bit … fishy?
I mention these exploits because I like to picture “The Lemon Song” as the audio equivalent of the typical Led Zeppelin post-concert groupie experience. And I don’t mean the rose-tinted, Almost Famous, “baby-faced rock journalist adorably comes of age” kind of experience. I mean the “We’re drunk and we’re bored and we’ll fuck you with a baby shark” kind of experience. Select highlights:
1:26 – Although the majority of the attendees appear to be having a perfectly fine time thus far, things are proceeding a little too slowly for Bonham’s taste, so he kicks the shenanigans into a higher gear. Upon the commencement of the mass stripping and imbibing, the lead guitar that’s been panned to the right, having briefly peeked in its head at the conclusion of the 12-bar progression to check out the action, only to immediately dart out again (perhaps finding the atmosphere too tame for his liking), picks up on the change in vibes and promptly goes to town on what appears to be eight groupies at once. All the while, the lead guitar that’s been panned to the left, which had initially been the most gregarious one at the start of the gathering, switches to a low, droning buzz, content to let the other guitar overdub steal the show while it voyeuristically gets its rocks off in the corner.
2:26 – Bonham and Page, sweaty and sated, decide to take a mutual break, but Plant, possibly perturbed at this unexpected halting of the debauchery, raises an objection: “BAAAAAAAAAAA-YYYY-AAAAAAA-YYYY-AAA-YYY-Yeah!”
2:54 – Following Plant’s obligatory “Now take it down a little bit …,” Jones realizes that now is apparently the perfect time to gather some of the party’s more intellectually-inclined guests around the record player in the corner and bust out his jazz collection. From about 2:58 to 5:34, Jones sounds like he’s auditioning for a spot in Miles’s touring band. He’s wearing the beret and the striped shirt and everything.
5:04 – Plant tosses a pair of commanding “Hey!” exclamations in the direction of a nearby female, only for Page’s guitar, clearly playing the role of the “female” in this gripping drama, to raise one eyebrow and sassily retort, “Rawrr!”
6:10 – After the second and final “rave-up,” during which every sea creature mentioned in On The Origin of Species is presumably tossed around the premises – not merely shark, but octopus, stingray, jellyfish, sea horse, etc. – the unsuspecting suburban teens who’d merely been looking for a fun night out with their favorite British rock stars find themselves slinking home in shame and discomfort, Page’s heavily treated guitar effect that recedes into the distance sounding like a wounded puppy clutching its tail.
Then there’s “Heartbreaker.” Again, these RIFFS.
Seriously, where did he get these riffs? How many souls did Jimmy Page have to sacrifice on Riff Mountain in order to acquire these riffs? How many secret contracts did he have to sign with the U.S. Department of Guitar Riffs before he was legally allowed to unleash these riffs (surely in violation of the Geneva Convention) onto the unsuspecting public? Other albums have a “Parental Advisory” sticker; Led Zeppelin II should have a “Riff Advisory” sticker.
You know what “Heartbreaker” is? It’s “crunchy.” The word for “Heartbreaker” is “crunchy.”
I don’t know how they did it, but the recording sounds simultaneously huge and yet full of detail and definition, with Bonham’s drums echoing against the walls of whichever cheap studio they’d managed to book while on the road that week. I also admire how, every now and then, the band gives the impression that it’s taking a moment to stop and audibly hump itself: “Hey fellas, have you heard the news GGGRRR gggrrr back in town.”
Also, only just now have I learned that the lyric is “Hey fellas, have you heard the news/You know that Annie’s back in town” and not, as I had assumed for many years, “Hey fellas, have you heard the news/You know Banana’s back in town” Like there was some local gang leader nicknamed Banana, and he’s strolling into the bar where everyone hangs out, after a long absence, and he’s announcing, “I’m back, ladies, let’s go.” Does it matter? That riff!
Like “Whole Lotta Love” before it, there’s some chicanery in the middle, including an unaccompanied, roughly 50-second Page solo where, to my ears at least, he’s mimicking the sound of a man trying, in vain, to turn the ignition of his car (I picture a Ford Mustang), and it just won’t start. Until the 2:48 mark and BAM, we’re off to the races. Just needed a little finessing, that’s all.
Then right around 3:40, he spots a Highway Patrol officer on the side of the road, and the breaks on the Mustang screech to an unexpected halt, before he turns onto a residential street just in time for the third verse. Let’s just say that if I requested an Uber ride, and Jimmy Page popped up as my driver, I’d skip to the next guy.
*****
I cannot tell a lie: there are three tracks on this very flammable dirigible that don’t ignite my hydrogen tank quite like the other six, but perhaps because they are A) strategically sandwiched between my favorites; B) not carbon copies either of each other or of the surrounding titans of glory; C) still sporting distinct merits of their own, these three hardly interfere with the almost continuous forty-three minute high that I consider Led Zeppelin II to be.
In my early time with the album, perhaps I was a little harsh on “Thank You.” While, in theory, one could appreciate the value of breaking up the riff-heavy onslaught with a “love ballad,” a sweetly positive depiction of romance did not sit well with my teenage desire to wallow in bitterness and frustration. “If mountains crumbled to the sea/There would still be you and me”? Come on guys, this is not what I came for.
Also, if I am not mistaken, the “Little drops of rain” bridge features the magnificent “backing vocals” of one James Patrick Page, which, as far as I can tell, mainly consist of him balancing delicately along a tightrope of one note. (At least Led Zeppelin never had to worry about any Roger Waters/Don Felder/Noel Gallagher-style conflicts over whether the “sidelined vocalist” would be allowed his share of the microphone, right?)
But over time, I’ve come to appreciate its function as a mellow, keyboard-laden breather. That said, as British rock songs with false fade-outs go, it’s no “Strawberry Fields Forever,” let alone an “In Every Dream Home a Heartache,” or even a “That Joke Isn’t Funny Anymore.”
There might be fans of this album who feel that the main riff of “Living Loving Maid (She’s Just a Woman)” unfolds with the same slinky grace as the album’s other riffs, but that fan would not be me. Some riffs descend from Riff Mountain; other riffs are the ones you find in the pawn shop down the street. The band themselves considered the track filler and never played it live (curiously enough, as the B-side of “Whole Lotta Love,” it peaked at #65 in the US), and while I am perfectly willing to disagree with an artist’s evaluation of their own work, I wouldn’t do so too strenuously here.
That said, I do like the bridge, where Page increases the wah-wah quotient as Bonham slows the tempo to a striptease-worthy crawl, before the rest of the band (or multi-tracked Plants?) join in on “So you better lay your money dowwwwwwn.” Also, the lyrics are pretty funny:
With a purple umbrella and a fifty cent hat
Missus cool rides out in her aged Cadillac
Alimony, alimony paying your bills
When your conscience hits, you knock it back with pillsTelling tall tales of how it used to be
With the butler and the maid and the servantry
Nobody hears a single word you say
But you keep on talking till your dying day
According to Hammer of the Gods, these were inspired by a “thirty-ish groupie queen” with a “pancaked face” who kept stalking Page for days, claiming “to be the ex-wife of a famous producer, dressing the part – dyed blonde hair, black leather miniskirt, tall boots, a cowboy hat.” Thirty-ish? Talk about over the hill.
Oh, and for two “favorite album” essays in a row, I get to crack a Herman Melville joke. Because, just as Moby-Dick contains a few chapters in which the author arguably strays too far from the narrative, and yet those digressions, in retrospect, merely add to the work’s intimidating aura of convoluted excess, so does the Brown Bomber contain “Moby Dick,” a four-and-a-half minute song in which three of those minutes consist of a drum solo.
Now, if there were two songs on the album that featured a drum solo, then I might be more irritated, but one? It also doesn’t hurt that he’s a pretty good drummer.
Besides, the little opening and closing sections that aren’t the drum solo are kind of spicy (although Bobby Parker’s “Watch Your Step” says hello). I can see why some might cite “Moby Dick” as a reason why II shouldn’t be considered Zeppelin’s best album, but … I never skip it. Like the Velvet Underground’s “European Son,” by about the sixth tom-tom tap, my brain just relegates it into the background.
Not to mention it functions as a nice table-setter for the shocking finale, “Bring It on Home.”
Now, my father didn’t provide much historical context for Led Zeppelin when he included “Whole Lotta Love” on his mix tape, other than to tell us that, back in the day, “They called this ‘heavy metal’.” Heavy … metal? Seemed a little redundant. How often does one come across “light” metal?
Nor did I have the depth of knowledge to object when, upon reading my print edition of the All Music Guide back in the late ‘90s, I saw Stephen Thomas Erlewine open his bio of the band with the sentence, “Led Zeppelin was the definitive heavy metal band.”
Only after many awkward encounters with “true” metalheads, usually sporting tattoos and piercings, have I learned that, contrary to what my father and the All Music Guide once taught me, Led Zeppelin might not even be considered “heavy metal” at all. To these metalheads, Zeppelin were too folky, too airy-fairy, too hippy-dippy to be properly “metal.” To these guys (and in my experience, they’re usually guys), if any band deserved the title of “definitive” metal band, it would be Black Sabbath. Because Sabbath were bleak to the core – none of that wimpy “romantic” crap like “Thank You” and “Babe I’m Gonna Leave You” for them. Clicking on the AMG page for Led Zeppelin now, I see Erlewine must have been chastised by the same people I have, as his revised bio describes the band as “heavy rock” and one that had “a long, lasting influence on hard rock, heavy metal, and alternative rock,” but not necessarily as “metal” themselves.
The problem I have with this is that … Black Sabbath sure seems to have spent a lot of time trying to be Led Zeppelin. “Their sophomore album features an indulgent ‘drum solo’ song as the second-to-last track (‘Moby Dick’)? Our sophomore album can feature an indulgent ‘drum solo’ song as the second-to-last track (‘Rat Salad’). “They did an acoustic instrumental interlude to fill out the running order (‘Black Mountain Side’)? We’ll do an acoustic instrumental interlude to fill out the running order (‘Orchid’).” “They did a juvenile Tolkien song (‘Ramble On’)? We’ll do a juvenile Tolkien song (‘The Wizard’).” Come on guys.
I think conversations like these quickly devolve into which fan base can be more “extreme.” Maybe Zeppelin are too tame for fans of Napalm Death and Cannibal Corpse, but whatever. I wasn’t around then, but I imagine that, upon its release in October 1969, Led Zeppelin II must have been the heaviest, crunchiest, nastiest album anyone had encountered to that point. Here’s a “Metal Genealogy” I found online that considers Zeppelin “early metal,” so yeah, that’s good enough for me. Besides, the two most important genres are “Music I Like” and “Music I Don’t Like,” and Led Zeppelin falls into the category of “Music I Like.”
But I bring up the whole genre discussion because, in my mind, heavy metal is where hard rock lost its overt connection to the blues, and listening to II is like witnessing that split in real time. And in the case of “Bring It On Home,” it is a literal split.
Here we are on a calm, moonlit Southern evening: Plant, Jones, and me killing time outside the shack after an exhausting day of labor, Plant’s harmonica ricocheting off the old man’s barn. Everybody’s nice and relaxed. You want to know something? I could almost go to sleep to the sound of this.
Not so fast.
Because THEN.
If you’re thinking the first minute-and-a-half of “Bring It On Home” sounds like an old blues song, that’s because it is – and not even that old (1963). Oh sure, co-songwriting credit should have been doled out to Willie Dixon a bit sooner than it was, but you think Led Zeppelin stealing a Sonny Boy Williamson song is bad? How about Sonny Boy Williamson stealing the name of another, already famous, pre-existing bluesman named Sonny Boy Williamson, insuring that music scholars would henceforth have to refer to him as Sonny Boy Williamson (II)? Just saying.
In essence, I think the band intended this initial section to be, and I would consider it to be, an “homage.” They are slyly tipping their cap to their forebears … so that they can destroy them. As the Buddhist proverb says, if you meet the Sonny Boy Williamson (II) in the road, kill him.
Because at the 1:43 mark, Zeppelin kick down the barn doors, unleash the flaming torches, and burn the place to the ground. This ear-shreddingly new section bursts out of the seemingly benign “tribute” section like the alien popping out of John Hurt’s chest. I picture 1,000 samurai jumping out of the trees, hoisting their swords, and running straight toward me as they scream “AHHHHH!”
Led Zeppelin promptly trash, chop, and demolish this Chess Blues ditty into sixty-nine ragged chards. “Bring It On Home” is like the audio equivalent of Led Zeppelin sneaking up to the Sacred Temple of the Blues, in the middle of the night, and pissing on it in one last, Dionysian gesture of rebellious destruction. It’s kind of Oedipal – like “The End,” but not as intellectual.
I feel like Led Zeppelin’s debut, while exaggerating and elongating the format of the blues, did not quite destroy the blues. The blues still had a faint pulse.
After “Bring It On Home,” the blues were dead. The blues had flatlined.
II might be the place where rock truly started losing its connection to rural and organic sounds and finally morphed into something more urbanized, mechanized, and inhospitable. And to emphasize the magnitude of what they’d done, Zeppelin switch back to the sedate Sonny Boy tribute in the last few seconds. As Plant’s final harmonica flourish fades into the stillness, I imagine the stunned inhabitants of the village standing around the wreckage with “What the hell just happened?” looks on their faces.
I’ll state my theory now, without much in the way of scholarly evidence: II is the last gasp of the blues as an active, continuously evolving genre. After II, the blues were finished. Done. Stick a fork in ‘em.
In other words, I think a recording artist, in September 1969, could have still claimed to have been performing a contemporary genre known as “the blues.” But that exact same recording artist, in November 1969, doing generally the same thing, would now have had to accept the label of “blues revivalist.” Basically, you were going to be Stevie Ray Vaughan.
The evolution of the blues into the Star Child that would come to be known as heavy metal was complete. The album cover of II might as well have featured an illustration of a tombstone with the words “R.I.P. – The Blues (1880s-1969)” on it.
Sorry, aging Alabama field hand, your genre was destroyed by four British Aleister Crowley fanboys with rune symbols for names. My apologies.
*****
It would be generous of me to call Led Zeppelin II a “deep” album, and yet why is it that, despite its lyrics appearing to feature the intellectual heft of a horny 14-year-old Dungeons & Dragons enthusiast, this album resonates with me on such an emotional level? Why is it that, despite the Venn diagram of Led Zeppelin’s sex life and mine featuring a microscopically thin sliver at its center, I connect to its alleged “themes” of groupie bedlam run amuck?
Upon further examination, I don’t believe this album, at its core, is about “having one’s lemon squeezed” or “giving one every inch of one’s love.” To me, this album is about taking life’s little disappointments in stride, and mustering up the inner strength to embrace the promise of a new day.
Nestled within the sleazy center of the album’s worldview, I find a stoic embrace of misfortune and adversity. Led Zeppelin II is, when all is said and done, an ode to the inevitability and yet regenerative power of interpersonal struggle.
One reason why I suppose I’ve never resented the amount of “action” the songs’ protagonists’ genitals might be receiving is because these protagonists don’t seem to be enjoying that action very much. “Thank You” aside, the relationships chronicled herein appear to be relationships “gone wrong,” a circumstance which befalls most of us. While I would not make a thorough attempt to rebut those who accuse these four gentlemen of “misogyny,” to me Zeppelin’s gripes and groans aren’t so much about “women doing men wrong” but about “somebody doing somebody wrong” – in other words, a fairly gender-neutral dissatisfaction with being on the short end of the romantic stick. I see these as equal opportunity blues tropes.
And frankly, when I was an 18-year-old teenager nursing a crush or two (or ten?) that weren’t exactly going my way, I appreciated the cathartic venting of such sentiments, comical and overblown as they may have been. “I went to sleep last night/I worked as hard as I can/I bring home my money, you take my money/Give it to another man”? That’s rough, man, that’s rough. “One thing I do have on my mind/If you can clarify, please do/It’s the way you call me another guy’s name/While I try to make LUUUUV … to YOOOOUUUU!” I feel that right there.
But rest assured that, no matter the level of emotional agony thrown their way, rebound Zeppelin will: “Some people cry and some people die by the wicked ways of love/But I’ll just keep on rollin’ along with the grace from the Lord above.” Yeah, man. Bitter as my teenage self was, I figured that, you know, if Led Zeppelin could make it through the pain, then so could I.
Which leads me, at last, to the song I consider the lyrical and spiritual heart of Led Zeppelin II: “Ramble On.”
One night in high school, at about 1:00am, unable to sleep, a female-inspired dilemma stirring uneasily inside my breast, my family’s automobile (fully equipped with cassette deck) sitting outside unused, I grabbed a stack of the most suitable tapes at my disposal, and went on an impulse drive from my trailer park on the San Mateo coast up to Marin County (not quite Middle Earth, but close enough). And the album that served the moment better than perhaps any other?
Led Zeppelin II.
Zooming up Sir Francis Drake Blvd., through the dense redwoods of Samuel P. Taylor Park and on toward Point Reyes, at 2:30 in the morning, inching my way out to the edge of the western world, the road serving as my personal canvas, “Ramble On” blasting out of those tinny Ford Escort speakers, I felt Led Zeppelin momentarily giving me the strength to overcome my woes.
“This …” I declared, “… this … is my anthem.”
Although I’m told that the ever-present 16th note “pitter-patter” percussion was provided by Bonham tapping a suitcase, I suspect its true source stemmed from Robert Plant venturing into the local shire, recruiting a willing innkeeper, carrying him back to the studio, and pointing a microphone at a pair of genuine hobbit feet. I would also speculate that it is not Jones’s superlative bass that we are hearing on the track, but the strolling of Treebeard the Ent, who, despite his hefty girth, proves himself unexpectedly nimble when needed.
The opening verse paints an ominous picture of shifting winds:
The leaves are falling all around, time I was on my way
Thanks to you, I’m much obliged for such a pleasant stay
But now it’s time for me to go, the autumn moon lights my way
For now I smell the rain, and with it pain, and it’s headed my way
Days of hardship lie ahead, as the shadow of darkness descends across the land. It is not the path that one would have chosen (the path with amenable, scantily clad groupies being superior of course), but is Plant succumbing to despair? Perhaps you underestimate the man:
Ah, sometimes I grow so tired
But I know I’ve got one thing I got to doRamble on, and now’s the time, the time is now
To sing my song, I’m going ’round the world, I gotta find my girl
On my way, I’ve been this way ten years to the day
Ramble on, gotta find the queen of all my dreams
That’s more like it. These guys are prepared to stare into the Eye of Sauron and laugh. Bonham’s stuttering rhythmic turnaround that follows Plant’s exclamation of the title should theoretically kill any semblance of groove, but I feel like it acts as a sonic representation of a journeyer stumbling over an obstacle in his path, and yet swiftly recovering. Translation: despite the stop-start drumming, the chorus still somehow rocks harder than almost any chorus in Zeppelin’s catalog.
Got no time to for spreading roots
The time has come to be gone
And though “Our health” we drank a thousand times
It’s time to ramble on
See, this is the kind of song that warms my little part-time Buddhist heart. One must not sit and dwell upon the notion of “roots,” for the world is an ever-shifting landscape, and one must leave the ghosts of the past to rot in the mulch on the roadside. Or, to quote one of Led Zeppelin’s distant descendants, “Wherever I may roam, where I lay my head is home.”
Then at 1:46, Plant is cocooned by, I believe, a cloud of droning fireflies, the glittering sparks insulating him from ever-present harm (according to Wikipedia, Page “achieved the smooth, sustaining violin-like tone on the solo by using the neck pickup on his Gibson Les Paul guitar with the treble cut and utilising a sustain-producing effects unit,” but whatever).
Another explosive chorus, then a brief bridge appears, embers of magic elvish dust tumbling down the cliffsides like sonic waterfalls of fire (again, probably just Page playing around with some studio tricks, but go with me here).
A cymbal crash, then Plant tiptoes up to the line that most British rockers before him dared not cross:
Mine’s a tale that can’t be told, my freedom I hold dear
How years ago in days of old, when magic filled the air
Don’t do it, Plant … don’t quote Tolkien … once you quote Tolkien, you can never go back …
‘Twas in the darkest depths of Mordor, I met a girl so fair
But Gollum and the evil one
Crept up and slipped away with her
Ain’t nothin’ I can do now
Annnnnnd he quotes Tolkien.
Absurd as it may seem, that hits me hard right there. I mean, when Gollum and Sauron creep away with your girl? That’s a tough pill to swallow.
But the kicker here is Plant’s resigned lament: “Ah-ain’t nothin’ I can do now.” Exactly. When you’re up against the Dark Lord and his kingdom of servants, there really is nothing you can do. You’ve just got to take your lumps, turn the page, and carry on. The singer has embraced the conflict with gusto:
“I guess I’ll keep on … Ramblin’!”
And then, in perhaps the most mind-blowing plot twist of all, Plant’s secret identical twin brother, who had apparently been wearing the One Ring the entire time, suddenly removes it from his finger, and reappears just in time to duet with his kin on the final chorus and the outro. I probably shouldn’t have attempted to type this out, but:
I’m gonna … shhh-yeah-yeah (Sing my song!)
I’ve gotta find my baby … I’m gonna (Ramble on!) move along, sing my song
Gonna work my way, go around the world (Baby baby)
Doo-doo-doo (Ramble on) A-doo-doo (I can’t stop this feeling in my heart) Doodie-doodie-doodie (Every time I babe [?] I simply got to part)
Baby baby baby (Gotta keep searchin’ for my baby) Baby baby
It’s like two Robert Plants fighting over possession of the same body.
Tolkien digs aside, amid the eye-rollingly adolescent imagery, the line that truly sticks with me is “Gotta find the queen of all my dreams.”
Does such a woman exist? And yet, isn’t it that type of illogical yearning for the impossible that defines the human experience? You’ve just boned a thousand groupies in every major city across the United States, and yet, the queen of all your dreams is out there still, roaming the hills in your second-rate Hobbit rip-off universe, waiting to be discovered. The mix tape of life may be littered with Laura Branigan and Jennifer Warnes tunes, and yet one never knows when a stray “Whole Lotta Love” just might sneak its way on to the end. I wonder if, with “Ramble On,” Plant and the others may have discovered that elusive equilibrium, the joy and pride that comes with the chasing of dreams possibly beyond reach, and yet worth chasing still.
Perhaps Led Zeppelin knew it better than anyone: All that is gold does not glitter, not all those who wander are lost.