Blueshadow’s Bon Jovi Blog

Artist: Led Zeppelin
Album: Physical Graffiti

If you’ve been following this blog, you know that Led Zeppelin was one of the first true hard rock bands that I really got into.  Oddly enough, for a band that was so influential in shaping my taste in music, I haven’t been picking them for Random Songs very much.

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Artist: Led Zeppelin
Album: Led Zeppelin III

This song was on the Early Days greatest hits CD, which was one of the first hard rock/heavy metal CDs that I bought back when I first started to try to figure out what my musical taste actually was. That CD showed me what hard rock could be–and was fairly quickly retired to my car as I replaced it with CDs of the albums that the tracks were drawn from, including Led Zeppelin III.

‘Immigrant Song’ was one of the songs that stood out to me when I was first listening to Led Zeppelin’s music. More than anything else, the driving rhythm of this song was what stood out to me. This was a song that stood up and grabbed me by the throat–something that was relatively new to me at the time. This song has power–and a lot of it.

Plus, I’ve always been a bit of a history buff. To some degree, the historical Viking theme of the song interested me. I found it fascinating that someone could draw inspiration from something as unlikely as the Vikings to produce rock music. I also thought that the song channeled what the Vikings were all about–it was intense, hits hard, and is gone just as quickly, leaving a lasting impression behind it.

Artist: Led Zeppelin
Album: Led Zeppelin IV

Actually, I could get a complete post out of every track on this album, but for today, I’ll focus on “When the Levee Breaks”. This was one of the first hard rock albums that I actually owned. Like many other albums that I bought during that time in my life, listening to this was an enlightening experience. (I think it was also a relief to my parents when I brought this album home too.)

This song stood out to me in particular at the time because it managed to bring in the harmonica and other blues elements without making the song sound like a a parody of itself. It was really the first time that I had encountered music created by people with a strong background in blues music. Up to that point, all of the rock music that I had heard was pretty far removed from its roots. This was different.

At one point in time I could listen to this song on repeat and hear something new on every time through. Even though the lyrics are extremely simple, the outstanding musicianship on the track brought the song to life for me. The vocals blend perfectly with the rest of the track, and were part of what cemented my fascination with hard rock. This song was astounding in what it made me feel–even in the parts where I couldn’t make out the lyrics. And then when I actually looked at the lyrics to the song, the words fit perfectly with the feel of the song.

Like the rest of the tracks on Led Zeppelin IV, this song is nothing short of a masterpiece.