Music for Roctober - #10 - Led Zeppelin
"It all boils down to. . .well it keeps boiling down" as Robert Plant so aptly puts it in the 1970 interview above. We enter the top 10; the best of the best, the big mothers, the whoppers, masterpieces. The top ten starts with Led Zeppelin, the band the established music press loved to hate in the late-1960's and early 1970's. Led Zeppelin was the portrait (if not sometimes a caricature) of the rock and roll band with the long hair and mysticism, the screaming mixed with the ballads and the rock and roll lifestyle.
The origins of Led Zeppelin are traced to the Yardbirds even though Zeppelin guitarist Jimmy Page is the single thread of connection. As the Yardbirds fell apart in 1968, Page brought on future Led Zeppelin bassist John Paul Jones and future Led Zeppelin lead singer Robert Plant who recommended that Page bring on future Led Zeppelin drummer John Bonham. . .you get the point; that's how one band becomes another.
Led Zeppelin's first album - creatively named Led Zeppelin I - came out in 1969. In the next ten years, the band would release eight original albums. Though they would certainly have hits, Led Zeppelin developed the idea of album-oriented rock. Throw any of their albums on your turntable (ok, in your CD player or on your iPod) and you won't get a couple of hits supported by middling tunes. Instead you will be taken on a forty-five minute rock and roller coaster ride as great song after great song twists and turns you through metal, folk and power ballads (okay, Physical Graffiti is a ninety-minute ride).
Our song number ten is the mother or all power ballads from Led Zeppelin 4. Written by Page and Plant, "Stairway to Heaven" was constructed in 1970 at Plant's family cottage in Wales. The studio version of the song runs 8:02 and starts with a slow build-up to a. . .wait a minute. You know the song. Everyone knows the song. Here it is (a damned good version, I might add). One more thing: "Stairway to Heaven" wasn't released as a single (how did we dance to this in high school?):
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