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foreign

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hey

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it has sold more than 25 million copies

in america alone

it included arguably the most celebrated

rock anthem of all time stairway to

heaven

and yet nobody actually knows what to

call it

is it led zeppelin iv or the runes album

or four symbols

that depends on who you speak to but

there's no question that led zeppelin's

fourth album released in 1971 was the

one that took the band beyond rock god

status

turning them

into social icons

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oh

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well at the end of 1970 led zeppelin

were really at a a great peak in their

career as far as the public were

concerned but a bit of a trough

personally because they were so

exhausted after

almost two years of non-stop touring

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at the time of recording the fourth

album uh zep were probably pretty tired

from all the touring they've been doing

in america so there might have been some

tension there

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obviously the first three albums have

really

established them worldwide

they'd worked at a very fast pace and i

think when they get to set four it was

the first time they'd really taken stock

and worked at their own pace

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they've done six tours of america

they've had three platinum albums

absolutely massive

arguably they were the biggest live rock

band on the planet at that particular

twenty-six time

larynx's

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in their

careers huge when they started recording

for you know successful sellout tours of

america successful sellout tours of this

country

uh three out of three albums behind them

but what what made it quite interesting

was the fact that

uh the press had been quite critical

about that zeppelin iii in this country

you know if you listen to all the arms

you'll be able to listen to something

and say that sounds like exactly because

it's a saying you know but in actual

fact each album is very different

there's a lot of different things on

each bar yeah and i thought three was

especially different from one and two

which were basically very heavy sort of

music and there's a lot of acoustic

stuff on three yeah

the third album had been received with a

little bit of disdain even by their

hardcore fans over here because a lot of

people considered it a little bit too

folky zeppelin three

um tend to get branded as one of the

more folky albums it had a lot of more

sort of guitary sort of pentangly folky

rhythmic

tracks on it

there was no restraint with the whole

idea of being

with or without an amplifier i mean we

just did whatever we wanted to do

they desperately wanted to do something

to appease the british media and more

more to the point they wanted they

wanted to make their stamp on the uk i

think up to that point everything had

been a whirlwind from 68 when they

formed

to 71 and it was the first time i think

they all took stock and that's why the

album comes out in a very

measured way

i used to

get music papers and things like that in

the end

i didn't get them because they had this

policy that you would god one minute the

next you know and that's the way that

they you know to keep the paper going

and controversy and stuff you know

and in the end i thought trash

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the album came off the back of the

mysterious and slightly more folky led

zeppelin 3 and took everyone by surprise

but why

what was the incredible magic that seems

to this day

to seep through the music

it's a combination of myth

paganism and alternative passions that

fuse together with powerful inspiring

libido-led music to create one of the

ultimate albums

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make you sleepy

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never once to take the easy path the

band decided to use the rolling stones

mobile studio installing it in the

forbidding victorian grandeur of hedley

grange in hampshire

because it was

open plan i think the sound that paige

wanted

quickly you know became a power he

wanted a vast expansive sound which that

album has got and again it was down to

him as a studio craftsman which he is he

knows the sound he wants to hear

you know the way i see recording is to

try and capture the sound of the room

the vibe

and the emotion of the whole moment

and try and convey that across you know

that that's the very essence of it

um

and so consequently you've really got to

catch as much of the room sound as

possible

you don't like anybody in the studio

when you're playing a guitar do you no

i usually i usually just limber up for a

while and then do maybe three solos to

take the rest of the three

they took it out of the studio because i

think they felt that the studio

compressed them a little i think you

know within four walls

um of a studio there was only so much

they could do

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it's incredulous that jimmy page has

gone down as saying that he actually

used to get nervous in the studio when

you consider the amount of sessions that

the guy played on

i suppose now it was him now it was led

zeppelin you know and it wasn't just

some fruitcake pop record that he was

playing on that he had to deliver he has

been stated as saying that he got a

little bit jittery in the normal studio

environment

so it was natural for them to go

somewhere where they felt comfortable

where they could take breaks as and when

they wanted without looking at a clock

ticking

it was the beginning of quite a few acts

that did that and i think zeppelin was

quite a pioneer of that that actually

got the idea from fleetwood mac i think

flew and matt were the first people to

go into headley grange but he set a

precedent really but i think the reason

it works so well was because they were

able to spend a whole week

you know

literally ensconced in the place but it

wasn't all about recording you know it

wasn't there's a studio time two till

four it was we'll go in when we want to

go in if we want to go in at seven we'll

do it if you want to do it two in the

morning we'll do it and i think a lot of

the music

came out in a very relaxed way because

of that

lack of discipline

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headley grange wasn't exactly the most

welcoming of locations

when they arrived at the place it was

december 1970 and the harsh weather had

set in

the house was freezing so in true rock

star style the band decided to burn what

remained of the banisters in fact they'd

already done something similar on a

previous visit a damp and creepy place

and andy johns who was to engineer the

record maintained that it was haunted

i think part of the reason they chose it

was i think because it was haunted i

think jimmy page in particular rather

like the idea of creating this somewhat

spooky atmosphere which certainly imbued

a lot of zep's early recordings he

always felt there was quite strong

sort of cosmological forces at work

within zeppelin i mean at that period in

rock music anyway there was quite a

strong undercurrent of mysticism

and it was all new it's all being

discovered and talked about for the

first time so it wasn't like a kind of

pretentious sort of um publicity stunt

by any means these were just ideas and

thoughts and feelings that young

musicians had at the time and

that was kind of searched maybe our

quest for um something different in life

some explanation for life was

quite crucial i think to the creation of

the music so it wasn't just a great big

commercial enterprise leds up and there

was a lot of deep stuff going on as well

it's incredible to take note of the fact

that they only spent six days there when

recording the fourth album

which must count as some of the six most

productive days ever in the history of

rock

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until the new lives make me a happy man

black dog is a rather a very powerful

introduction to led zeppelin iv

i think they're almost deliberately

making this very positive statement

because the previous

third album had been

not criticized but slightly uh

disappointing for some fans who felt it

was too too much towards acoustic music

they'd made an acoustic statement on

that album and black dog was really

saying we're back we're sexy we're loud

well we are led zepplin

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the song began with the sound of paige's

guitar warming up which most bands would

have instantly cut out of the final mix

not this lot

why not invite the listener into the

inner circle by giving them a peek of

led zeppelin preparing to perform

well led zeppelin was very much a live

act let's face it you know they were the

greatest live acts of all time

and i think every time they went into

the studio or went to record an album

wherever it was

there was an edginess that was in them

from playing lives that they wanted to

bring

to the recording i really do believe

that if you leave accounting on a track

um and i used to do this with quo a hell

of a lot if you leave the end a little

bit ragged

somehow it takes the listener there to

the environment it's not this

disembodied piece of music that just has

a nicely edited beginning and a nicely

edited end and those little bits of of

supposing the outtake just give it a

it's like a little bit of fresh air it's

like a bit of reality oh they're not

that big

to me i never even thought they were

outtakes i just thought they're right

that's part of the track it's it's

humanity it's what happened at the time

if you listen to the start of black dog

you can hear the sound of the tape

machine starting up just worrying as the

machine was put into record uh you can

hear what page later called his guitar

army he's scrubbing the guitar and

getting ready to rock

and so

it's it's it's it

i just think they they did it because

they could

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god

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i think the whole thing is that f4 is a

band having great fun and that's one of

you know the key

attributes of that album you know

they're really having a blast

you do message songs what what is the

message that that you're trying to get

sort of a message of enjoyment you know

the whole the whole idea of music from

the beginning of time was for people to

you know be happy

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if black dog isn't a musical come on i

don't know what it is

it has to be

the most direct set of lyrics

in rock as far as

describing what you'd like to do when

you kept that woman home

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black dog

hang on a second

i think i have those lyrics here

hey mama said the way you move going to

make you sweat

going to make you groove

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gonna make you sting

i mean for god's sake that's almost like

sexually transmitted disease spiel at

its best isn't it really

um

it's brutal

well in this house this headly grange

there was a there was a old black dog

there and it and it's uh

one night it went off

because it was really it was really

quite old and the one i obviously been

off you know doing the things that dogs

do

and came back and slept all day and you

know just it was it was quite a powerful

image at that time

so we called it black dog

it's a very bold statement and uh

starting off kicking off with robert

plant in full voice screaming and

shouting

in timeless fashion

and uh

you know being answered in in the way

that plant and paige did that was their

kind of a

showpiece really was the way that they

worked like a traditional blues act call

and response

is the phrase and that's what they did

in that piece

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started telling a friend she gonna be a

star

what is important about the song is that

classic riff that has totally screwed up

so many guitar players

from then until the present day

it even screwed up john bonham

apparently for a while until he suss

that i can just grip my teeth and

regardless of what those buggers are

doing i can just play fours all the way

through it

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and the lift was an impossible riff it

had three four time had four full time

you know no other band could go away and

actually do that lift it was unique and

when you heard it

it didn't stack up but for some reason

paige made it work

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you have

a riff fighting against

another beat but because everything is

separated into crotchets so one two

three four two two three four eventually

everybody comes back together

so for a moment in the riff

everybody's drifting around floating

around each other and they all lock in

again

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and then you've got the solo at the end

of the track i mean it's a complete

heads-up you know yardstick he's a leads

up in yardstick and i think

again it says everything about the fun

they were having it was relaxed it was

spontaneous you know they knew

where they wanted to come from they had

a few templates but nobody really knew

where it would end up

you know a black dog is a track that

just ends up spiraling off into the

sunset which is fantastic

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so

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page and jones the band's two studio

masters explored every nook and cranny

of the house in order to get the maximum

sounds

they set up bonham's drum kit in all

sorts of strange places including the

hallway the whole situation was fraught

with spontaneity

the unmistakable groove of rock and roll

happened thanks to one of those happy

accidents that only seemed to occur with

the true greats

i don't think that led zeppelin set out

to be a blatantly experimental band in

the way say like king crimson or even

emerson lake and palmer or any of the

progressive rock groups were

um they didn't make a great thing about

it at heart they were rock and roll band

they played blues they played

traditional rock and roll

but at the same time they did um set out

to incorporate new ideas in the studio

they would use whatever was lying around

they would experiment with the drum

sounds

and in a place like headley grange with

a mobile truck we're not talking about

in london at one of the then

state-of-the-art studios we're talking

about a damp cold old house with a

recording truck outside

i'm all in favor of recording trucks but

but back then they weren't as

sophisticated as they are now and some

of the effects and things that they got

out of

what was available to them was quite

astonishing paige had always been one

want to try anything out the violin

though is a classic thing violin bow on

a guitar

which he made a stage feature

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uh

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they did experiment but not in a

pretentious self-conscious sort of way

it's uh

it was a matter of bringing in new ideas

all the time into each piece and to see

if it would work

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their experimentation was quite

tastefully done i always thought

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rock and roll is is uh

again

if you saw zeppelin live when they were

using it as the

the first song the intro song

uh

it was just like watching four animals

being unleashed from cages and it was it

was

you know the perfect the perfect way to

start

a set

so

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a rock was uh rather like black dog said

this is led zeppelin back powerful and

heavy rock and roll was also saying this

is led zeppelin traditional

led zeppelin we know all about rock and

roll music this is what we were brought

up on because there was always a certain

element of snobbishness maybe emanating

from traditional rock and roll fans who

saw bands like the who and zeppelin

these young usurpers really didn't take

them terribly seriously

jimmy page um

was always big on you know the 50s

guitar heroes you know james burton

scotty moore

plant loved uh little richard sadie on

it was a throwback to the 50s and of

course it kicks off with this uh famed

drum introduction that john bonham plays

which is like the hi-hat and the snare

drum kicks the whole thing into touch

they were working on the track four

sticks

which was just not coming together and

john bonham went off into this doodle

which was basically the drum part for

keeper knocking by little richard

paige instinctively fell into the riff

they recorded about 12 seconds of it and

it broke down but then they thought hey

we got something here so

four sticks was temporarily shelved and

they went on recorded rock and roll

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you know recorded in 15 minutes flat and

that's fact it's not a myth within 15

minutes of having the idea bang down you

know no six months in the studio then

you know that's what i got along some of

the best rock tracks ever have been

recorded as quickly as that

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oh

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you only hear a few bars and you're

pulled into it it's an arrangement not

many rock bands can do arrangements

which means

actually changing the volume and the

tempo and the pace and varying the

instruments most bands go from a to b

and it's loud at the beginning and loud

at the ends nobody knew and they didn't

know that it was going to have the

effect it did you've got a lyric

that can be interpreted any way you like

it was probably the one that got a lot

of attention but it wasn't you know the

holy grail

that took a while what is it about i

think because of the way he writes he

manages to retain an air of mystery it

just was the last track on side one but

it obviously became a lot more than the

last track on side one over the years

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there's

a lady shoe

all that glitters is gone

and she's buying the stairway

to heaven

and when she gets there she knows

if the stars are all closed

with a word she can get what

she came for

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i think it is the perfect arrangement

although it's an eight-minute song the

build is absolutely magical and there's

a funny thing that happens when you hear

it on the radio or a mate plays it again

at first you think oh no not stairway to

heaven again and almost in spite of

yourself you find yourself getting drawn

into it and it finishes and you think

yeah that's great and yet you start out

thinking if i never hear that song again

i'll be perfectly happy it's um

it's a haunting sound but it didn't

sound um

stilted or it wasn't struggling i mean

so much

progressive rock which went on for about

17 minutes of a double album maybe

would become you know exhausting and uh

lose its way whereas stairway to heaven

the reason it's so successful i think it

works like a little compact piece of

classical music

it's probably um

one of the most famous pieces of music

in in rock history

we can clearly see in this big romantic

theme there are

um clear echoes of the the romantic

school

of composition it owes a great debt to

beethoven and mendelson composers like

that

and rhythmically it's very very close to

j s bach's famous prelude from the

preludes and fugues both pieces are

strikingly similar in many respects both

written in c major

both four four time

very similar construction in terms of

the melody and it's also interesting in

the the jimmy page

uh employs the device of the sharpened f

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and is this

unexpected f sharp that makes the

melodic shift in the whole piece

and jimmy page introduces that much

earlier into stairway to heaven but it's

very

similar to the

kind of call and response structure of

the back piece with his

so you can see how the the two pieces

are are very closely related the prelude

and fugue is quite widely used in rock

music proko harum

famously employed it as did richie

blackmore and rainbow on a number

occasions so you'll find it quite

frequent and it's it's influence for me

is definitely there in stairway to

heaven

it really built a little bit like the

zeppelin sort of mystique built through

the years and it was through being

played live that it claimed the status

that it did

you know and then it became a millstone

around their neck in the end but early

on and in the context of the album and

the great thing about it now

is that because it's been much maligned

and you know lolf harris and all this

when you play it now and if you dare to

play it and that's what you know it's

almost a fear factor always stare at a

heaven i don't play that track anymore

when you do play it it's still a song of

great beauty it may not be the you know

the best thing on the album but it's a

song of great beauty and it has a

lasting effect

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is

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the amount of analysis that's gone on

the amount of web chat rooms the amount

of books that have been written just

about the meaning of the lyrics it's

absolutely

totally metabolics if you like what's it

about lyrical searching yeah

um

does it make much sense possibly does

the plant did it really matter

probably not

if you want to interpret lyrics in a

certain way

and it gives you some inner meaning

you've bought the material then that's

absolutely fine

even if you discount the lyrics which

are whatever they are they are it's a

lovely melody one of the most

lasting melodies of any rock song

um and then you know the inventive sort

of guitar seller at the end one of the

most inventive guitar solos ever ever

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it's again it's one of these songs where

if you have a moment

with either someone else or or just a

moment where you're watching the sunrise

or something it's one of those moments

that this piece of music if it connects

it's going to connect

into every vein you've got going and

makes something inside you

your little atoms are stirred by it

you're being it's one of those songs

that actually connects with your being

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um

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i still have a very very very big place

for stairway to heaven in my life

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of course there was more to the record

than just the music

the album cover has created so much

interest and interpretation over the

years

the band wanted it to be released

without any reference to a title or

their name

commercial suicide screamed their label

atlantic so zeppelin decided to

compromise

however when this band compromised it

was never anything other than

fascinating not to mention challenging

there were record company problems

when the record came out the fact there

was no title on the the cover it didn't

say led zeppelin anywhere on the outer

sleeve of the album which caused

panic and confusion at atlantic records

particularly in america where they

thought what are these guys doing how

are we going to sell an album with no

name on the car you've got to have led

zeppelin on the cover there was

absolutely no handle for it there was no

band name there wasn't even a catalogue

number

people at the record company called it

commercial suicide i knew that we were

getting a lot of hammerings from

different people the critics they were

saying oh it's a hype it's a hype it's a

hype that is a reason why on the fourth

album there's no title on it she said

you know might just as well what if they

say it's a hype well then this is a good

way of saying it isn't a height by

untitling it and saying

well here we are you know

it's not being sold by the name of the

bend it's the content of the material

i'm sure peter grant probably worried a

bit about it their manager they're all

all-powerful manager but he would go

along with anything that jimmy page

suggested got to give him his due he

stuck out for the band he you know he

dug his heels in and that was it it got

to a standoff where they were

withholding the master tapes they would

not deliver the master tapes until the

record company relented and then the

record company saw that there was a

clause in the contract giving zepp

complete creative control over their

sleeves uh and everything else i

remember being in the

in the atlantic office there with a

lawyer for two hours while he kept

bringing out all these books saying

you've got to have that i said all right

then if that's what you want to do then

re-run it on the inside bag here on the

inside of the uh

print print your vintage rockefeller

plaza whatever it is down there of

course they didn't want to do a re-run

on it so it went out like this and so

the record company had to go along with

it and i think the the thought was that

the group was then so powerful so famous

and successful that you didn't need to

put the name of the uh

the band on the cover people would just

go to this shop and say i want the new

led zeppelin album and they they'd know

which one it was because it's the album

without any name on the cover so only a

few bands could possibly ever get away

with that

this was

they were said professional suicide

uh to release an album with with no

nothing on it whatsoever

um

apart from

the symbols

and what do those symbols mean there's

been a lot written about the four signs

uh paige said to the others okay

what i want you to do is go away and

come up with a sign that represents you

and supposedly they were going to go to

kochi's book of signs

others went elsewhere

but the basic interpretation as i say of

the signs is is this

what has been called zozo which is

jimmy page's sign a lot of people have

called it zozo apparently it's according

to page it doesn't say zozo the zed with

the convoluted line at the bottom which

is an alchemic sign for mercury um

signifies page's star sign

he's a capricorn ruled by saturn

um

the o and the s and the o that an o with

a dot in is said to represent six so of

course so a lot of people have seized on

this that the s is a convoluted six that

it's 666

but basically it's based around his star

sign

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the sign for bonham

is a lovely one

the three interlocking circles which

apparently is the man woman child

trilogy

all life man woman child

the fact that it was used as the

valentine's beer logo is an interesting

one because uh

but bonzo's love of the booze is is well

documented and uh i think he might have

seen the valentine's beer logo

john paul jones three ellipsoids

with bound by a circle the trinity bound

by the circle signifies confidence and

confidence and competence

which is probably all about

john paul jones great arranger great

musician very very confident very at one

very happy with his life

[Music]

the sign for robert plant is a very

interesting one which is the circle of

life and inside is a feather which

signifies the egyptian goddess mayat

who was a goddess of truth and justice

which is that

apparently plant wasn't a very good liar

at any time so he chose that and of

course the feather is the sign of the

writer

they are the most popular versions of it

uh as to zozo's uh meaning

probably the real inner depth of it only

jimmy page knows he was into his occult

he was into

mysterious science folklore alistair

crowley is obviously uh he he actually

bought boleskin house up in um on the

shores of loch ness because it was owned

by the great magician alistair crowley

very strange

very very strange

it was just all part of the zeppelin

mystique and i think they played it

so well

and what was good about it is that their

audience went with it and even now you

walk down any high street and there's a

zozo t-shirt you know it obviously

worked because whatever it was whatever

those four symbols were and they were

pretty you know ambiguous you know i

don't think there was a game plan

you know it was just another typical

zeppelin mystique

you know and great fun and all part of

building

you know

the image but the image wasn't through

multimedia it wasn't for the internet

you know none of those things existed it

was an album cover and it was led

zeppelin and if you knew that you were

in the club if you didn't know it you're

out of the club and it seemed to be more

people wanted to be in the club so there

was that was the idea i think

fortunately we were in a position there

to be able to say this is what we want

because you know we had actually you

know

attained the status whereby that album

was going to sell a lot of albums

obviously not as many as we didn't think

it was as many as what it did but we

knew it was going to sell a lot you know

because of the because of the whole sort

of vibe of the band and you know

everything else

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well what was the uh in days of final

the second side of let's opening four

some people thought it was a

slight disappointment i suppose there

was a lot to live up to after

the power of stairway to heaven i mean

that could have been as i said it could

have been an album track in itself just

a you know a whole 12-inch old p could

have been stairway to heaven but

the second side of led zeppelin iv had

certain delights which have kind of

matured over the years i think

i've grown to appreciate them more now

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just

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actually parts of misty mountain hop are

a little bit cheesy the first half time

thing section to me feels almost a

little bit twee in the melody

but this was plants lyric about

supposedly about a gathering with

hippies or a meeting with dippies in a

park some say san francisco some say

hyde park uh when they were busted by

police for smoking dope

indeed robert plant was a strong

campaigner for pro-marijuana

and this may have been his stance

against the anti-marijuana laws at the

time

[Music]

[Music]

a lot of people tend to think that

they're

it's one of the tracks to skip when

listening to the album but actually the

leaning on the seventh with the

harmonies those ascending harmony parts

and following the aeg to e-riff are

actually quite meaty

and i think the harmonies are pretty

clever which is probably where john paul

jones stepped in to direct them as to

how they would move um

it's a solid song

probably the only overt drug song on the

whole album

and i don't think it's any deeper than

that really

and and on on three you had sort of you

know

mandolins and dulcimers you know have

you done anything different on your new

album

um there's about desserts two two tracks

with acoustic yeah going to california

that's mandolin again acoustic guitar

yeah

you know it's just sort of um

songs that were you know that we write

and do at the particular time that an

album

you know can we say right there we're

going to put them in an album ad

and we you know we do the songs that we

were whether we were right in that

particular time so the next one will

probably be different still

made up my mind making you start for me

foreign

in my heart

someone told me there's a girl out there

with loving her eyes and flowers

in her

going to california was actually

recorded outside sitting on the lawn you

know the mandolin

there it's a great vibe yeah i think you

can actually hear a plane going over at

one particular point that lovely droning

d sound it's it's a beautiful song it's

the the melody is absolutely lovely

and by their admission it was written as

an homage to joni mitchell the lady of

the canyon

um

the lady they seek uh it's all about jo

robert plant has said that he was in

love with joni mitchell well obviously

he means in the artistic sense but she

captivated people like that

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going to california was something that

all bands did anyway in the 70s and

still do you know it's great when you

are a new young band

you want to get away from all the the

dark cold of europe the wet weather and

the climate so going to california sort

of represents uh nirvana or the uh

you know sort of paradise in a way but

oddly enough i believe the lyrics were

actually inspired by

slightly more doomy thoughts about the

possibilities of earthquakes

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throw me

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i think they were thinking originally

about

the possibility of an earthquake in

california

going to california but it kind of

transpired or transmogrified into a

piece

more in tune with the hippie west coast

joni mitchell vibe that relaxed

laid-back romantic music which was yet

another facet of what led zeppelin were

all about

the sunshine the women the whole culture

um the laid-back attitude it it seduced

young english rock musicians

and let's be honest they they really do

owe it to their success in america they

were gods in america long before they

became gods over here

they owe

pretty much all of their success to how

how how they built this relationship

with the american audiences from the

constant touring and the epicenter of

their love of america was california

[Music]

led zeppelin were an english band

who

america took to their heart and what

what are you going to do

you know

two-month tour in america

or a 15-day in

england at sheffield city hall or you

know but whatever there was nothing big

that a bank could could go on to whereas

you go to america

and you're talking about

twenty thousand

twelve thousand they beat the beatles

record at shea stadium which i think was

about

58 000.

you know these these are these are

numbers of people that

paying cash on the night

is going to result

in a very nice dinner afterwards are you

a smash over here as well as everybody

as much out well there's more people

here

that's so therefore

you know it's a proportional difference

really it's probably the same but on a

different scale here did you expect this

kind of um

appreciation of your of what you do

and not to begin with because not from

this extent no we knew we were

appreciated by the fact that people were

coming along to see us in such great

vast numbers all over the place england

and the continent from wherever

but no one expected this

i think when led zeppelin 4 burst on the

scene and it was reviewed by critics and

the public and accepted by the public

i don't think

they or the band thought of this as kind

of a pointer necessarily to some new

future this is representing all the best

they could do at that point in time

it hinted that there were more grandiose

things to come when you listen to when

the levee breaks it hints at tracks that

were to come later like cashmere

physical graffiti which remains my

favorite ever zeppelin track led

zeppelin were nearing their their peak

really they were sort of they'd been in

the game for a few albums now and they'd

kind of grown into a style of their own

and i don't think we could really see

where it was gonna go next but um

it was certainly a progression

and

something that sounded very led zeppelin

this was the halfway mark maybe the high

water mark in some respects because

although they did great albums later

houses of the holy had some terrific

moments and

people talk now about physical graffiti

the big double album as a milestone but

really physical graffiti only had two or

three real standout tracks as a double

album a lot of it was

kind of filling really um

it wasn't uh nearly as coherent as

zeppelin iv it wasn't a concept album

but the emotions you've gone through

from black dog onwards

and then you've suddenly got this

spiraling track at the end this this

huge outpouring of blues emotion what a

way to end an album and it ends with an

echo there's an echo that says i want to

hear that again

the secret of a lot of this is the fact

of where it was recorded

you cannot talk about when the levy

breaks without talking about that drum

sound which is one of the most sampled

sounds in history everybody from ice tea

to puff daddy

chemical brothers the beastie boys got

into trouble over sampling it it is

monumental there is no drummer can play

that groove like john bonham did

[Music]

no one hit the snare drum harder and

nowhere do you hear a snare drum being

hit as hard as that opening salvo to

that track

[Music]

[Applause]

and what happened is while the rest of

the band were at the pub one night at

hedley grange

andy johnson himself took delivery of a

new drum kit that had just arrived and

with headley grange being on three

stories they set the kit up in the

massive ground floor hallway and the

microphone the stairway is leading up

all the way around you know the

stairwell so to speak

and the microphone is one stereo mic

coming out sort of one and a half floors

up above the kit and the results were

fed through

um jimmy page's echoplex echo unit with

the result that you get that

huge drum sound the the thing of the

ambience you know we'd start

starting now to go the whole hog you

know plants in his absolute element you

know he wants to be robert johnson well

on that track he was you know the whole

chemistry of zeppelin as a blues band

is all there on that track that menacing

slow

plodding groove it's it just works works

wonderfully

[Music]

a blues band on their own terms not

retro you know they took the blues and

put it into the 70s and it still sounds

great you know in the naughties you know

it just does it's got

it's got a kitchen sink in there and it

levy

and when the levee breaks that was a

riff that

you know that uh

that i that i had written around the

the original

breaks so to speak

and but

as far as the recording of it goes the

idea was to bring in something new on

each

verse every time it's something new

zeppelin were good at using influence

and the influence of the blues was

paramount from z1

i think with levy it matured again to a

point where they could use an old blues

track which it was the knicks memphis

minis version um which was recorded in

27 i believe

and made it very much their own this is

this is zeppelin blues absolutely at its

best strap on their own

sound to it and again that sound was

built out of bottoms drumming and

paige's guitar now on that track is just

unbelievable it zips across the speakers

you know and really jumps out of here

and obviously the bottom drum sound at

the beginning but apparently it's just

used everywhere you know great harmonica

great song

great break in the middle and great

great end there's also a very spooky

kind of feeling about

when the levee breaks and of course at

the time in england people didn't really

know what a levy was it didn't have any

great

significance what is a levy you know

unless you live in new orleans you

wouldn't know and now of course when the

levee breaks takes on new significance

certainly for the the city of new

orleans but uh

obviously uh these levees had been

breaking a lot of times back in the past

if they were writing about it back in

the 1920s it had this uh

apocryphal feel about it

you know the big flood was coming when

the levee breaks and

i suppose really uh that kind of sums up

zeppelin's uh

future in a way there was this uh

feeling of power building up behind a

dam and something about to break so

let's having four ends on this rather

menacing hypnotic note

[Music]

[Applause]

hey

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[Applause]

[Music]

you