(Credits: Far Out / surrealuv)
Led Zeppelin had more chops in their ranks than a butcher shop two minutes till opening time. They were unrivalled in this department. And the public even proved it. Once upon a time, Planet Rock Radio set out to create the greatest fantasy rock band ever. With an admittedly small survey pool of around 4000 people, fans submitted answers declaring their favourite singer, guitarist, bassist and drummer from the world of rock. The results comically crowned Led Zeppelin as the group so good they make rock fantasies come true.
Robert Plant, Jimmy Page, John Paul Jones, and John Bonham were all at the top of their respective classes. This makes them the only supergroup in the world who lived up to the sum of their parts. With the legendary Page often likened to a classical composer by his peers, Bonham the proverbial thunder, Plant with a voice that threatened to pluck Sputnik out of orbit, and Jones the perfect multi-instrumentalism to serve as the foil and glue, the band soared to Promethean heights.
Plant, in particular, often claims that he was overawed by the ability of the group and found it difficult to keep up. But rather than shrink behind the subsuming orchestra, he did everything he could to ensure his vocals transcended the melee. As Pete Townshend told Jackie Brambles, “[Plant] started to really regard his voice as an instrument and to really take care of himself.“
He continued, “He didn’t use drugs, he didn’t drink a lot. He had his issues, his eccentricities, but he really looked after himself.“ This was by design. Plant knew that he had to sharpen his tools, so to speak. Unlike many groups before them, Led Zeppelin weren’t just hoping to write charting hits, their goal was to push the virtuosity of music in some new way. They pretty much conquered, but it was injecting emotion alongside the magnitude that Plant began to struggle with.
This became apparent with one wavering anthem that defied convention and tested Plant to the limit. The problem that the band faced with ‘Since I’ve Been Loving You’ was turning a simple blues track into something more elevated that suited their style; they had made a rod for their own back in this regard. This sent the song spiralling towards a complexity that tested every member’s strengths. As Plant told Mojo: “The musical progression at the end of each verse – the chord choice – is not a natural place to go.”
The singer continued. “And it’s that lift up there that’s so regal and so emotional. I don’t know whether that was born from the loins of JP or JPJ, but I know that when we reached that point in the song you could get a lump in the throat from being in the middle of it.” So, it was emotionally worth it. The track also became a live staple, and it typified the band’s ethos of borrowing, quite boldly, from blues sources and then twisting the tracks with classical complexity.
While the band would later say that it was the hardest track to record from Led Zeppelin III, this was partly due to the fact that they chose to do so entirely live with only a few little overdubs taking place in post-production. In fact, they were so determined to hone it down to one tight take that showcased their skill that you can even hear the squeak of Bonham’s pounding drum pedal going like the bedsprings in a brothel at certain stages.
But, it’s a sign of the perseverance that made him so great that despite the difficulties, the group wound up playing it a whopping 296 times, second only to ‘Dazed and Confused’.
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