Hello, my friends! It's been a good week for our blog. Before we enter the new one, time to get on with our Led Zeppelin Top 50 Countdown. Here we go!
At #40 is Ten Years Gone, from the album Physical Graffiti (1975). Originally intending this to be an instrumental piece, Jimmy Page used some 14 guitar tracks to overdub the harmony section. Robert Plant later added lyrics, which are dedicated to an old girlfriend who, ten years earlier, had made him choose either her or his music. Plant explained this in an interview in 1975:
"Let me tell you a little story behind the song Ten Years Gone on our new album. I was working my ass off before joining Zeppelin. A lady I really dearly loved said, 'Right. It's me or your fans.' Not that I had fans, but I said, 'I can't stop, I've got to keep going.' She's quite content these days, I imagine. She's got a washing machine that works by itself and a little sports car. We wouldn't have anything to say anymore. I could probably relate to her, but she couldn't relate to me. I'd be smiling too much. Ten years gone, I'm afraid. Anyway, there's a gamble for you."
In another interview, Plant credited Page with the song's intricate construction: "Jimmy is the man who is the music. He goes away to his house and works on it a lot and then brings it to the band in its skeletal state. Slowly everybody brings their personality into it. This new flower sort of grows out of it. Ten Years Gone was painstakingly pieced together from sections he'd written."
It is perhaps the best Zeppelin song that radio never seemed to really get a handle on, a dark and devastating epic that lives up to the contextless drama of its title. It’s also the secret masterpiece of Jimmy Page’s oeuvre, a stitching together of about a half-dozen riffs, each of which has its own unmistakable identity, somehow woven together to create the base for a surprisingly coherent masterwork of regret and unease. “It sounds like nature coming through the speakers,” Rick Rubin once said of the song, and he wasn’t wrong.
This is the original studio version:
This is live in concert in Knebworth, 1979. This was just before John Bonham's tragic death.
Here's a great cover version by Michael Kiwanuka:
At #39 is Your Time Is Gonna Come, from Led Zeppelin's 1969 self-titled debut album. An inspired exercise in musical contrast, as explained by legendary rock producer and Zep superfan Rick Rubin: "It’s like the drums are playing a big rock song and the guitars are playing a gentle folk song. And it’s got one of the most upbeat choruses of any Zeppelin song, even though the words are so dark." All true, making it the first album’s biggest grower of a track.
There's also some impressive organ work from John Paul Jones. The lyrics concern an unfaithful girl who will pay the price for her deceitful ways. Slash, the lead guitarist of Guns N' Roses, has said that Your Time Is Gonna Come is his favorite Led Zeppelin song. Here it is:
This is a cover version by Vanilla Fudge:
At #38 we find That's the Way, from Led Zeppelin III (1970). Like several of the tracks on the album, it is an acoustic song and is one of the most gentle and mellow compositions in the Led Zeppelin catalogue.
The peak of Zeppelin’s first run of acoustic experimentation, That’s the Way is as simple and lovely as the band ever got. It’s the kind of song you write after a long day of walking around your stately manor in Wales, which we might not have known before Zep showed us here, as Plant was apparently so overcome with his surroundings that it inspired one of his most deeply felt lyrics - a love song that sounds and feels more like being in love with the entire universe than with any specific person or thing. That, indeed, is the way it ought to be.
Lester Bangs of Rolling Stone praised That's the Way, writing that the track is the first Led Zeppelin song that has ever truly moved him. He said: "Above a very simple and appropriately everyday acoustic riff, Plant sings a touching picture of two youngsters who can no longer be playmates because one's parents and peers disapprove of the other because of long hair and being generally from 'the dark side of town.' The vocal is restrained for once - in fact, Plant's intonations are as plaintively gentle as some of the Rascals' best ballad work - and a perfectly modulated electronic drone wails in the background like melancholy harbor scows as the words fall soft as sooty snow: 'And yesterday I saw you standing by the river / I read those tears that filled your eyes / And all the fish that lay in dirty water dying / Had they got you hypnotized?' Beautiful, and strangely enough Zep. As sage Berry declared eons ago, 'it sure goes to show you never can tell.'"
This is the studio version:
This is live at Earls Court, 1975:
This is a cover version by Canadian Collette Andrea:
At #37 is Houses Of The Holy. In the “Songs Not Actually on the Albums They Share a Title With” hall of fame, Houses Of The Holy is a first-ballot entry and might even get its own wing. Recorded for the album of the same name, this stomping come-on was shelved for sounding too much like Dancing Days and resurrected for Physical Graffiti. Page sprays shrapnel while Plant evokes fertility rites and drugged-out tarot readings. Rick Rubin has called it "one of their most compact-feeling songs."
The song kicks off in high gear and doesn’t outstay its welcome, and it’s virtually impossible to get sick of. Plant's vocals are, winningly, mixed up high. The song title taken with the lyrics refers to the "sacred" places where young adults have their sexual rites of passion such as movie theaters, drive-in movies, concert halls, and arenas, or even a hilltop. The opening and closing lines are, "Let me take you to the movies. Let me take you to the show. Let me be yours ever truly," with sexually suggestive verses in between (e.g., "Let me wander in your garden, and the seeds of love I'll sow").
Jim Miller of Rolling Stone gave Houses of the Holy a positive review, saying "Plant's lyrics mesh perfectly with Page's stuttering licks." Miller continues "Here again, the details are half the fun: Bonham kicks the cut along with a cowbell while the two final verses add what sounds like a squeaky chorus of 'doit's behind the vocal; Plant meanwhile is almost inaudibly overdubbed on the song's central chorus, underlining the phrase 'let the music be your master.'"
It was released as a single in Italy, peaking at #27. Here it is:
Here's a cover version by a band from Scotland called The Temperance Movement:
Finally for today, at #36, is a song with a very long history. Gallows Pole, which appears in Led Zeppelin III, is a traditional song. The Maid Freed from the Gallows is one of many titles of a centuries-old folk song about a condemned maiden pleading for someone to buy her freedom from the executioner. It was successfully recorded in 1939 as The Gallis Pole by folk singer Huddie "Leadbelly" Ledbetter, and - the most famous version - in 1970 as Gallows Pole, an arrangement of the Fred Gerlach version by Led Zeppelin.
There are many versions, all of which recount a similar story. A maiden (a young unmarried woman) or man is about to be hanged (in many variants, for unknown reasons) pleads with the hangman, or judge, to wait for the arrival of someone who may bribe him. Typically, the first person (or people) to arrive, who may include the condemned person's parent or sibling, has brought nothing and often has come to see them hanged. The last person to arrive, often their true love, has brought the gold, silver, or some other valuable to save them. Although the traditional versions do not resolve the fate of the condemned one way or the other, it may be presumed that the bribe would succeed. Depending on the version, the condemned may curse all those who failed them.
The most extensive version is not a song at all, but a fairy story titled "The Golden Ball", collected by Joseph Jacobs in More English Fairy Tales. The story focuses on the exploits of the fiancé who must recover a golden ball in order to save his love from the noose. The incident resembles The Story of the Youth Who Went Forth to Learn What Fear Was. Other fairy tales in the English language, telling the story more fully, always retell some variant on the heroine's being hanged for losing an object of gold.
In the Bob Dylan song Seven Curses, it is not the maiden who is to be hanged but her father, for stealing a stallion. The woman offers to buy her father's freedom from the judge, who responds: "Gold will never free your father/ the price my dear is you, instead". The maiden pays the judge's terrible price but wakes the next morning to find that her father has been hanged, anyway.
The song may have originated in continental Europe. Some 50 versions have been reported in Finland, where it is well known as Lunastettava Neito. It is titled Den Bortsålda in Sweden (Die Losgekaufte in German). A Lithuanian version has the maid asking relatives to ransom her with their best animals or belongings (crown, house, ring, sword, etc.). The maiden curses her relatives who refuse to give up their property and blesses her fiancé, who does ransom her.
In a Hungarian version called Feher Anna, collected by Béla Bartók in his study The Hungarian Folk Song, Anna's brother Lazlo is imprisoned for stealing horses. Anna sleeps with Judge Horvat to free him but is unsuccessful in sparing his life. She then regales the judge with 13 curses.
Cecilia is one of the best-known and more diffused songs in the Italian popular music. With no reference to any curse, it tells a story not very different from those of Feher Anna and Seven Curses. Cecilia's husband has been condemned to be hanged, and she asks the captain how it is possible to spare his life. The captain promises to save her husband if Cecilia sleeps with him, but in the morning Cecilia sees from the window her man has been hanged.
Page and Plant added the frantically escalating arrangement (on which Page makes his banjo-playing debut, with Jones joining in on mandolin) and the horror-show ending. This is Led Zeppelin's version:
This is Robert Plant & Jimmy Page @ Jools Holland Show, 1994:
This is Leadbelly, in Washington DC, 23 August 1940:
Judy Collins performed the song Anathea throughout 1963 (including a rendition at the 1963 Newport Folk Festival), credited to Neil Roth and Lydia Wood. It is thematically similar to the Hungarian Feher Anna cited above, even to the detail of the name of the brother (Lazlo). It appeared on her third album, Judy Collins 3, released in early 1964.
Now, let's continue with last week's statistics; it was a good week for us: There was a 5% drop in the weekly number, but since I'm uploading this a day earlier than usual, it makes sense. Last week's Led Zeppelin did great, but it was Blondie that had a spectacular number of visits, plus enthusiastic reactions. I'm really glad, because it was a lot of work, plus I love Debbie Harry and the musicians of Blondie. Eric Emerson didn't do too bad, considering very few people knew him.
As far as countries are concerned, this week we witnessed a historic change; for the first time since the birth of this blog, Greece has slipped down from position #2 on the all-time list. It is replaced by the United Kingdom, which, after falling as low as #7, has made a triumphant comeback and has claimed the runner-up slot for the first time ever. It wasn't that Greece dropped, in fact, its overall percentage is stable. It was the upward momentum of the UK that did the trick. Russia, Germany, and the United Arab Emirates also kept their overall percentage. Canada and Spain were also stable. Except for the United Kingdom, France and Cyprus increased their share, while the United States, Italy, and Belgium experienced losses.
You may remember that in last week's top 10 we had countries from four continents; only Asia was missing. This week Asia makes up for it by having two different countries in the top 10: the United Arab Emirates and Indonesia. As far as the all-time top 10 is concerned, the distance between Belgium and the United Arab Emirates is extremely small. Anything can happen in the next 7 days. Also of interest: The battle between the United Kingdom and Greece for second place, as well as the one between Cyprus and Italy for seventh place. Also, I'm looking forward to a week when the United States will actually experience an increase in visits.
Here are this week's Top 10 countries:
1. the United Kingdom
2. the United States
3. France
4. Greece
5. Russia
6. Cyprus
7. Canada
8. the United Arab Emirates
9. Indonesia
10. Spain
Here are the other countries that graced us with their presence since our last statistics (alphabetically): Argentina, Australia, Austria, the Bahamas, Belarus, Belgium, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Brazil, China, Croatia, Czechia, Denmark, Egypt, Estonia, FYR Of Macedonia, Germany, Hungary, India, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Kenya, Kuwait, Lebanon, Lithuania, Malaysia, Malta, Mexico, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Nigeria, Peru, the Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Saint Pierre and Miquelon, Serbia, Singapore, South Africa, South Korea, Sweden, Switzerland, Thailand, Turkey, Ukraine, Uruguay, Venezuela, Vietnam, and Zimbabwe. Happy to have you all!
And here's the all-time Top 10:
1. the United States = 39.4%
2. the United Kingdom = 8.9%
3. Greece = 8.8%
4. France = 7.4%
5. Russia = 4.8%
6. Germany = 3.6%
7. Cyprus = 1.37%
8. Italy = 1.24%
9. Belgium = 0.66%
10. the United Arab Emirates = 0.65%
That's all for today, folks. Till the next one!
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