FEATURE:
In the Light
Led Zeppelin’s Physical Graffiti at Fifty
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I am looking ahead…
IN THIS PHOTO: Led Zeppelin performing at Earl’s Court, London in 1975/PHOTO CREDIT: Ian Dickson
to 24th February, as that date marks fifty years since Led Zeppelin’s Physical Graffiti was released. 24th February, 1975 was when it was released in the U.S. It came out four days later in the U.K. I want to spend time with a classic album from perhaps the best Rock group of them all. The album was a huge commercial success. It debuted at number one on the U.K. chart and three in the U.S. I am going to come to a very detailed and passionate review of Physical Graffiti from Youth (Martin Glover) soon. I would also recommend a documentary such as this, which delves into the making of Physical Graffiti. First, tied to a fortieth anniversary (2015) reissue of the album (that included unreleased tracks), Jimmy Page (the band’s guitarist and co-songwriter with their lead, Robert Plant) talked to The Independent about the background to the album - and what he considered Led Zeppelin’s legacy to be:
“So many myths have grown around Led Zeppelin, the British rock band that ruled the Seventies and continues to cast a long shadow over popular music, that their guitarist, producer and curator extraordinaire Jimmy Page has to see the funny side. The 71-year-old’s hair may be snow-white but his black-clad frame is as pencil-thin as it was in his prime. The years roll back while we converse in front of a roaring fire, in a plush Kensington hotel, a stone’s throw from the Royal Albert Hall, where Led Zeppelin triumphed in 1969 and 1970.
He is talking up the 40th-anniversary edition of the double studio set Physical Graffiti, the third tranche of a reissue campaign that kicked off last June. The addition of companion discs containing out-takes, alternative, and rough mixes has returned the group’s first five multi-million-selling albums to the charts, introducing them to yet another new generation of fans.
Page is debunking a story about what happened before the recording of Physical Graffiti started. “On this one, we’re really bouncing. We’ve been touring and we’re going in there and John Paul Jones has left his choir,” he quips, alluding to the rumour that, at the end of 1973, his multi-instrumentalist bandmate considered quitting the biggest group in the world to become a choirmaster at Winchester Cathedral. The truth is more prosaic. “John had a big family and he wasn’t there on the first few days. His holidays over-ran,” he says.
Back in 1973, since vocalist Robert Plant was also late arriving, Page and drummer John Bonham began rehearsing the epic “Kashmir”, the unstoppable, Panzer-like track which typified the ambition and scope of Physical Graffiti. “I had that riff on an acoustic piece I was working on and I also had those staccato parts that became the brass parts. The idea of using the orchestra over that riff goes back to classical music, things like Benjamin Britten’s Variations on a Theme of Frank Bridge and The Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra. I knew it was pretty radical. John Bonham understood what it was about. The whole band took to it. “Robert said, ‘oh, I’ve got some lyrics that I wrote before, in Morocco’. He tried them out and they worked really well,” says Page.
As he admits, there was no guarantee the Eastern-flavoured majesty of “Kashmir” was going to translate across to the general public. Yet it became another gem in the superlative Led Zeppelin catalogue, more sonically ambitious than the era-defining “Whole Lotta Love” and “Stairway to Heaven”, and a milestone at the crossroads of world music and rap, recycled by Puff Daddy for “Come With Me” on the soundtrack to the Godzilla blockbuster in 1998. “People went, ‘oh, he shouldn’t have done that’, but you might as well say, ‘oh, he shouldn’t have dabbled in world music’. Of course, I should have. I was doing that as a teenager, so why in heaven’s name not? It’s all part of the big picture,” says Page.
Like many of his contemporaries, he followed up his interest in skiffle, rock’n’roll, folk and world music by delving into the blues. “We were doing the best research before the internet,” he recalls. “I’d include Arabic instruments like the oud and Indian ones like the sitar in that. It was all permeating into my playing, and that grew when I was in the Yardbirds and then Led Zeppelin. But everyone in the band had their own influences.”
In the summer of 1968, Page and Jones considered vocalist Terry “Superlungs” Reid and Procol Harum drummer BJ Wilson but, once they teamed up with Plant and Bonham for that first rehearsal in Soho’s Gerrard Street and started jamming “Train Kept A-Rollin’”, they never looked back. Within weeks, Page and Jones had ditched the New Yardbirds moniker and come up with Led Zeppelin. The name was inspired by a comment made by Who drummer Keith Moon when they had jammed with the Yardbirds guitarist Jeff Beck and pianist Nicky Hopkins on “Beck’s Bolero” two years earlier. “This will go down like a lead balloon”, said Moon.
By the time they returned to the States in the spring of 1969, they were topping the bill and recording their second album on the hoof. As their popularity grew, they headlined stadiums, travelled by private plane and created mayhem wherever they went, with many a tale of groupie debauchery passing into rock lore.
They also became the most bootlegged band of all time. Peter Grant, their formidable manager, used to scour the audience for recording devices, and made the occasional baseball-bat-assisted intervention in record stores selling pirate recordings. Page has remained fiercely protective of their catalogue and amassed his own collection of bootlegs, which proved handy when he began considering the current, definitive, state-of-the-art, expanded reissues.
Unlike many of the groups they inspired, Led Zeppelin were a versatile, ever-changing outfit, with Page as likely to strum a mandolin or a 12-string acoustic as to attack a twin-necked guitar with a violin bow before plucking another killer riff from thin air
“I made it my business to see what was out there, especially with this project. This stuff hadn’t come out on bootleg because it had been so carefully guarded,” says Page. “Because I was the producer from day one of Led Zeppelin all the way through, I had more points of reference than anyone else... The prospect of being able to do a companion disc to each of the originals, to give the fans what they wanted and more, was so attractive. On Physical Graffiti, there’s an early stage version of “In the Light”, you’ve got the structure of it, and you can hear the additional work that went into it.”
This approach is commensurate with the fact that, back in the Seventies, Led Zeppelin didn’t release singles in the UK. Indeed, by 1974, they’d assumed even greater creative control with the launch of their own label, Swan Song Records. They hit the ground running with the eponymous debut by Bad Company and Silk Torpedo by the Pretty Things but, as Page proudly recalls, “Physical Graffiti was the first piece of Led Zeppelin product on our own label, the right album for the right time. We had material that was left over from the fourth album and needed to be heard. Other people had done double albums and I was really keen to do a double showing all that we were capable of, from the sensitive guitar instrumentals through to the density of something like “In the Light” and the urgency of something like “In My Time of Dying”. Every track has its own character.”
Indeed, many consider Physical Graffiti, with its lavish, fenestrated cover and breadth of styles, the pinnacle of Led Zeppelin’s output. They would not be as carefree again. After a car crash in Rhodes in the summer of 1975, Plant was in a wheelchair when they recorded Presence. Two years later, the singer’s first-born son Karac died of a stomach infection. The making of In Through the Out Door in 1978 was overshadowed by Bonham’s struggle with alcoholism and Page’s battle with drug addiction.
And then John Bonham died in September 1980, putting an end to the last chapter of their stellar career. Page, Plant and Jones have reunited three times since, for Live Aid in 1985, to celebrate the 40th anniversary of Atlantic Records in 1988, and to pay tribute to Ahmet Ertegun in 2007, but these, as well as the two albums Page and Plant made in the Nineties, have been mere postscripts.
While Plant has forged on as a solo performer and the frontman of the Sensational Space Shifters, the guitarist has struggled to find partners on his wavelength, despite collaborations with Paul Rodgers, David Coverdale and the Black Crowes. He talks wistfully about doing his own thing “towards the end of the year. Not anything you’d imagine I’d ever do. I’m warming up on the touchline. I know what’s coming next, the fans do not and it’s nice to surprise them,” he muses, as much about the reissues as about his next venture. “It’s been fun. We didn’t repeat ourselves, we went over the horizon in every direction. There are so many tangents, so many facets to the Led Zeppelin music. We were not a one-trick pony.”
Unlike many of the groups they inspired, Led Zeppelin were a versatile, ever-changing outfit, with Page as likely to strum a mandolin or a 12-string acoustic as to attack a twin-necked guitar with a violin bow before plucking another killer riff from thin air.
How does he feel about their legacy? “Some bands have done terrible things, some bands have done really good things, playing in the spirit of Led Zeppelin. You’re only passing on the baton really. What does matter is that we’ve managed to make a difference and quite clearly Led Zeppelin’s music did”.
I am surprised there are not more anniversary features around Physical Graffiti. However, as the album turns fifty on 24th February, I think there might be more activity and engagement – as that is a properly big anniversary! Before finishing off with a review from AllMusic, here is Youth’s take on perhaps the greatest double album ever. Reviewing for Classic Rock, he explored a classic that contains some of the band’s finest material (including Kashmir and In My Time of Dying):
“Why is this possibly the greatest double album ever made? Why indeed. There’s a feral mystery to it even today, that still defies description, nevertheless we like the impossible. Let’s have a go, shall we?
Custard Pie lets us know what we’re in for. A menacing and salacious riff, dripping with intoxicating dirty blues lust opens the door to a Dionysian orgy, writhing with desire, revelling in its own relentless pursuit of pleasure. The unapologetic mutant funk rhythm section of Bonzo Bonham and John Paul Jones buffalos a path through the fray. Wha-wha clavinet snakes around your hips and spins you around. It’s primitive voodoo.
Razor-sharp guitars slash and burn, shredding and mangling your sensibilities. Robert Johnson, chicken blood and smoking valve amps are all invoked and teleported into leafy Barnes’ Olympic Studio 2 (amongst other locations). Inside, it’s aural carnage.
We get the beautiful Bron-Yr-Aur next, a gorgeous acoustic jig resuscitated from earlier sessions in 1970. It’s wistful and boasts a delicate beauty again reminiscent of Celtic/Vedic correspondence: its Raga-like open tuning, obviously pioneered and influenced by Davey Graham and Bert Jansch, but given a unique reinterpretation from Page within a strong melodic structure that strengthens the overall dynamics of the album.
The remastering, by Led Zeppelin veteran John Davies, is clearly apparent on this release. Remastering is important here. Though the band’s past CD releases saw some terrible mastering crimes committed against humanity the digital package I’m reviewing from here does sound great - warm and lush - on my home system. The vinyl sounds amazing and reveals that the mastering is certainly better than ever before, with more sub and lots of clarity. It’s also reassuringly heavy to hold.
Down By The Seaside, again a little light pop flavoured digression, is a little bit Beach Boys with Doo Wop backing vocals. Although its genesis was acoustic and influenced by Neil Young, it comes over more whimsical-Faces/Stones-like: the middle eight changes gear and it kicks off with some real verve. Page excels again. This really reminds me of waiting for school to finish during the long summer of ‘75.
When I listen to Ten Years Gone now it’s still spellbinding. Our astronaut alchemists nearing the end of their quest, heroin-soaked, cocaine-addled. Lost in the desert, wheels spinning in the sand. The struggle is beating them down, you can hear the weariness in the voice and beats, the end is near. It is prophetic, as nothing the band recorded subsequently would again match these heights.
Night Flight is another rescued outtake from ‘71 that, despite out of tune guitars, swaggers along like a maliciously strutting droog. These b-side ‘throw aways’ would be other bands’ lead tracks… staggering.
The Wanton Song is another anthem to female sexual promiscuity. A killer beat, arc welded to a filthy riff. Dirty, gravelly, soulful howls are exorcised from Plant, superb reversed guitars and a bridge that reminds me of Ace’s How Long, a great Lesley rotating speaker cabinet guitar overdub and a slick-wristed, psychedelic flowerpop solo. This is Zeppelin at their solstice zenith, and maybe their most influential track, but it’s all down hill from here.
Boogie With Stu is a lighthearted jam that evokes an image of the band on a day off in a New Orleans Bordello with the Stones’ Ian Stewart woogie-ing away at a 1920’s ragtime piano. It’s quite Bolan-esque really, but where it leads us is to the incredible Black Country Woman. “Shall we roll it, Jimmy?” asks a young Eddie Kramer as they’re captured recording al fresco in Mick Jagger’s Stargroves garden in ‘72. You can hear an airplane flying overhead.“Nah, leave it,” replies Page with a nonchalant chuckle. I love the way they leave that on, like a current hipster field recording. Its intimacy is prophetic. Bonham’s four-to-the-floor kick and twisted Beefheart break smashes this otherwise ordinary acoustic, country blues stomp.
Sick Again: “Through the circus of the LA queens”. Ten long years of on the road decadence and way too much impersonal sex with teenage groupies had taken its toll. They sound tired. Although I love the way Page generally mixed Plant’s vocals down into the mix, allowing the listener to investigate and get involved with the recording, to be able to work out, or even reinvent, what the lyric is. “Teenage dreams already old at 16”. This really is the end. Though fate prophetically points her finger to the new barbarians storming the rock citadel… Punk.
This is the last track on the album. The intro riff sounds spirited, like early Damned, but then the track kicks in and is ponderous and over-produced, too many overdubs. Halfway through there’s a shot of adrenaline administered and they all pick it up, but just a bit. Punk was something not even Zeppelin could have predicted or even withstood. (Punk’s zeitgeist within a year or two would make the band suddenly look and sound old, slow and cumbersome). Despite its failings (the demo is a lot more Beatles-like and lively) the track and album does end beautifully, on a solo reversed guitar dubbed up with echo and ominously, a prophetic Pistols-like pick scrape.
Just one year later, when I was 15 in 1976, the Job Centre in Fulham sent me to 484, King Road, Chelsea for an interview as a runner at Swansong, the band’s own record label. I couldn’t believe my luck… but it didn’t last long, as I made the fatal mistake of wearing a Zep vest and declaring my fanboy credentials to the receptionist. My interview was a cursory glance and grunt from Peter Grant and I was ushered unceremoniously out the door.
Skip to 1982, I am 21, a bona fide cult hero, a rock star with hit albums and a sizeable following, standing outside the very same Kings Road door (this area of Chelsea is ironically called World’s End) in a Biblical thunder and lightning rainstorm. Way too much Sorcerer’s Apprentice LSD and excessive touring has resulted in my own meltdown. My body is producing industrial strength DMT that is coursing through my blood… I am the walrus. I had gone from Sid Vicious to Syd Barrett in one quick amphetamine-fuelled, psychedelic dystopian summer. Everything had become cosmic and heavy. Like Joseph Campbell meeting Terence McKenna in a scene from The Omen.
Tired and emotional, I made the solitary shamanic pilgrimage back to where it started. “I know what you’re up too!” I screamed at the unanswered door, “It’s all black magic!”. I shouted feebly past the marble lions outside the door, which mockingly roared silent curses into my drug-fevered, abyss-like eye sockets. Ravens cawed above and the wind howled. Luckily, Mr Grant was in a kindly sympathetic mood that day. I was recognised and Peter rang my manager, Mr Fenwick at EG Management (another exclusive boutique management agency who also represented Killing Joke, Roxy Music, Eno and King Crimson and whose offices were only just a little further up the Kings Road).
“Come and get yer boy before we break his bones”. (Must have been some bizarre pirates’ honour of rock management etiquette and courtesy that dictated they didn’t break my bones before ringing EG up). Five minutes later and Mr Fenwick’s vintage Bentley purrs up alongside and gently but firmly, like at the end of the movie Performance, where James Fox is bundled off, I’m being whisked inside.
“That was close, Youth,” exclaims Mark Fenwick with a nervous chuckle (he still manages Roger Waters). “What were you thinking…? ” Love is the law”.
I am going to wrap up soon. In a year where there are some important anniversaries for a whole range of classic and beloved albums, I had to show some respect for Led Zeppelin’s Physical Graffiti. It is a double album that suffers few of the flaws many double albums do. Few filler tracks to be found in the pack in my opinion. Some prefer earlier Led Zeppelin albums where you got more focus and a leaner album. However, I like their later work. Epic tracks that sit alongside tight and funky tracks. It is an eclectic album that has stood the test of time and remains undetected. Here is what AllMusic wrote in their review:
“Led Zeppelin returned from a nearly two-year hiatus in 1975 with the double-album Physical Graffiti, their most sprawling and ambitious work. Where Led Zeppelin IV and Houses of the Holy integrated influences on each song, the majority of the tracks on Physical Graffiti are individual stylistic workouts. The highlights are when Zeppelin incorporate influences and stretch out into new stylistic territory, most notably on the tense, Eastern-influenced "Kashmir." "Trampled Underfoot," with John Paul Jones' galloping keyboard, is their best funk-metal workout, while "Houses of the Holy" is their best attempt at pop, and "Down by the Seaside" is the closest they've come to country.
Even the heavier blues -- the 11-minute "In My Time of Dying," the tightly wound "Custard Pie," and the monstrous epic "The Rover" -- are louder and more extended and textured than their previous work. Also, all of the heavy songs are on the first record, leaving the rest of the album to explore more adventurous territory, whether it's acoustic tracks or grandiose but quiet epics like the affecting "Ten Years Gone." The second half of Physical Graffiti feels like the group is cleaning the vaults out, issuing every little scrap of music they set to tape in the past few years. That means that the album is filled with songs that aren't quite filler, but don't quite match the peaks of the album, either. Still, even these songs have their merits -- "Sick Again" is the meanest, most decadent rocker they ever recorded, and the folky acoustic rock & roll of "Boogie with Stu" and "Black Country Woman" may be tossed off, but they have a relaxed, off-hand charm that Zeppelin never matched. It takes a while to sort out all of the music on the album, but Physical Graffiti captures the whole experience of Led Zeppelin at the top of their game better than any of their other albums”.
Released on 24th February, 1975 in the United States, it is no surprise Robert Plant calls the album his favourite Led Zeppelin release. Jimmy Page considers it a high watermark for the band and recalls fondly the jamming sessions where song structures were being worked out. Throw in the drumming prowess of John Bonham and the genius of John Paul Jones and this was a band at their absolute peak! An ambitious, eclectic and hugely impressive double album from the band, it still sound exhilarating and electrifying fifty years on. That is testament to an album that…
FEW have equalled.