The Led Zeppelin Top 50 Countdown (#25-21) & This Week's Statistics

Hello, my friends! We are now halfway through our Led Zeppelin Top 50 Countdown. Time to move toward the top.

Last week, we have started with In The Light, at #30. This week's first song, at #25, is In The Evening, from Led Zeppelin's final studio album with all four members being alive, In Through The Out Door (1979). This was probably Jimmy Page's last great guitar moment on record. The leadoff track of In Through the Out Door has a panoply of guitar sounds that would stand with his most creative work; a flurry of notes melding into a huge bank of running sound that skids into full stops and then eases into lulling interludes.

The creation of this song can be traced largely to Led Zeppelin bassist and keyboardist, John Paul Jones. When the band was recording this album, Page and drummer John Bonham would usually show up at the studio very late and work through the night. In their absence, In the Evening started out with just drums and keyboards created by Jones, who had a new drum machine to work with. The Zeppelin equivalent to Pink Floyd’s Young Lust is a nice marriage of Jones' love of electronics and the band's innate rock power, as well as its last sweeping anthem.

This is a live version at Knebworth, 1979:

At #24 is a song from Physical Graffiti (1975), called Trampled Under Foot. This stomping, brittle rocker should have been the leadoff track of Graffiti instead of the inferior Custard Pie. Page has at this point moved far on from the slow riffs of the first few albums. Here, he's utterly frenetic. It's one of the band’s thickest, tightest stomps, largely thanks to the superlative work of John Paul Jones on the clavinet. Plant works a sexual metaphor with automobile imagery echoing Robert Johnson's Terraplane Blues.

This is the Led Zeppelin song that critics find the most influences for: Mojo feels that it is inspired by Stevie Wonder's Superstition. Spin remarks that its melody is generously pinched from the Doobie Brothers’ Long Train Running, while a Rolling Stone reviewer said the song reminded him of Kool and the Gang.

This is a 1975 live version:

This is the U2 with Robert Plant on guest vocals, live in London, 2016:

At #23 is one of the two songs we'll be presenting today from Led Zeppelin III (1970). Tangerine was the band's greatest country excursion that dates back to a song written by Page and Keith Relf called Knowing That I'm Losing You, from the last Yardbirds session, in 1968. Page resurrected it with new lyrics that Plant described as being "about love in its most innocent stages." Page said, "We're not stale, and this proves it."

You can hear fingers on the frets, nails or a pick passing across the strings, to add just a touch of humanity to spar with electronically treated pedal steel. There's a minor drama here, and many shades of Page's guitars set like pastels in the glittering, nostalgic soundscape.

Led Zeppelin biographer Keith Shadwick also notes other earlier influences:

"The song's construction and overall tone is very much that of 'lost love' ballads from 1966–68 ... There are touches too of the type of arrangement (and subject-matter) used effectively on Mickie Most's Donovan sessions in the Yardbirds years when both [bassist John Paul] Jones and Page were still hired hands."

This is a live version from 1975:

This is a cover version by Big Head Todd and the Monsters:

At #22 is my favorite song from Presence (1976). Nobody's Fault but Mine is a gospel song that has been recorded by many musicians over the years. The first known recording of this song was by American gospel blues musician Blind Willie Johnson in 1927, titled It's Nobody's Fault but Mine:

In an interview, Jimmy Page explained:

"Robert [Plant] came in one day and suggested that we cover it, but the arrangement I came up with was nothing to do with the [Blind Willie Johnson] original. Robert may have wanted to go for the original blues lyrics, but everything else was a totally different kettle of fish."

Led Zeppelin biographer George Case adds, "Page was likely more mindful of John Renbourn's 1966 acoustic take [than Blind Willie] Johnson's". The Staple Singers also had a great version:

Nobody's Fault but Mine was developed and recorded by Led Zeppelin during the difficult period they faced after Plant's 1975 automobile accident in Rhodes. The incident left him with serious injuries to his ankle and leg and there was fear that he might not recover completely. With their misfortunes and the increasing drug use around the band, biographer Stephen Davis wrote:

"Robert was definitely spooked ... he believed that negativity associated with Led Zeppelin's music might be harrowing him ... from all accounts, [he] was also locked into his own remorse and grieving that his family had become victims of something that he might no longer be able to control."

Plant confesses his sins and scrapes notes from the bottom of his throat, and the opening may be one of Page's truly epic blues riffs – billowy and distant, like an SOS from an alien world. The production is perfect, the harmonica solo comes screaming in from out of nowhere, and the guys seems to be talking to each other on a higher level.

This is live from Knebworth, 1979:

Finally, at #21, is the second song for today from Led Zeppelin III (1970). Since I've Been Loving You may be Plant’s crowning achievement as Zeppelin’s vocalist, the gut-wrenching, Janis Joplin-like hysteria he imbues the song elevates it to greatness.

Page spent months on his solo to this epic – then settled on his original demo. Good thing: The slow blues is one of Zeppelin's most soulful moments, Page's guitar veering between spare and raucous attack, Jones playing blazing organ and Plant shrieking pure heartbreak. Audio engineer Terry Manning called Page's five-star guitar solo "The best rock guitar solo of all time." But ultimately, this is Plant’s show, and he steals it right back from his bandmate with his first “SAIIIIIIIIIID I’VE BEEN CUH-RYING!!!!”

This is a live version that appears on their film The Song Remains The Same:

... And this is a cover version that I particularly like, by Corinne Bailey Rae:

Now, let's continue with last week's statistics; it was a very good week: there was a 19.2% rise in the weekly number of visits, making this the most visited week for more than a month. Hopefully, this trend will continue...

As far as stories are concerned, last week's Led Zeppelin's countdown was a smash hit, Joe Jackson did great, Cydni Bullens did well, and Carole Pope had as many visits this week as it had on the previous one... And George Maharis is still in the top 5 stories of the week.

As far as countries are concerned, this week's big winner is France, with a comfortable difference from this week's #2, the United States, still on a free fall as far as its overall percentage is concerned. Russia and the United Kingdom, which are in positions #3 and #4, are also among the winners, as well as Cyprus, Italy, Canada, Australia, and Poland. Greece has dropped to #5 for the week but is keeping its all-time percentage stable. Except for the United States, the other major players that experienced a drop are Germany and Belgium. By the way, it's been some time since I've shown you the map of all the countries that ever visited this blog, so here it is (visiting countries in blue, the others in grey):

Here are this week's Top 10 countries:

1. France

2. the United States

3. Russia

4. the United Kingdom

5. Greece

6. Italy

7. Canada

8. Cyprus

9. Australia

10. Poland

Here are the other countries that graced us with their presence since our last statistics (alphabetically): Argentina, Armenia, Aruba, Austria, the Bahamas, Bahrain, Belgium, Brazil, Bulgaria, Chile, China, Croatia, Egypt, Finland, Germany, Hong Kong, Hungary, India, Indonesia, Ireland, Japan, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Lebanon, Luxembourg, Malaysia, Mali, Mexico, the Netherlands, Norway, the Philippines, Portugal, Puerto Rico, Romania, Serbia, Singapore, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Thailand, Turkey, Ukraine, the United Arab Emirates, Venezuela, and Vietnam. Happy to have you all!

And here's the all-time Top 10:

1. the United States = 38.2%

2. the United Kingdom = 9.2%

3. Greece = 8.7%

4. France = 7.9%

5. Russia = 4.8%

6. Germany = 3.4%

7. Cyprus = 1.38%

8. Italy = 1.25%

9. Canada = 0.68%

10. Belgium = 0.65%

That's all for today, folks. Till the next one!