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102. 'Whole Lotta Love' - Led Zeppelin (1969)
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Fresh from the success of their debut album, Led Zeppelin unleashed the iconic “Whole Lotta Love” onto the world. Little did they know, this experimental, almost chaotic journey would become a cornerstone of rock history – what began as a blues-inspired riff, transformed into an explosive rock journey that would put the name Led Zeppelin and their groundbreaking sound on every music fan’s lips. With its iconic Jimmy Page riff, Robert Plant's primal vocals, and that infamous psychedelic mid-section, “Whole Lotta Love” defied expectations, becoming a defining anthem of the band and a landmark in Rock music.
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Transcript
00:00:00
Speaker
Hello and welcome back to the Long Live Rock and Roll podcast. Fresh from the success of their debut album Led Zeppelin unleashed whole lot of love onto the world. Little did they know this experimental, almost chaotic journey would become a cornerstone of rock history.
00:00:15
Speaker
What began as a blues inspired riff, transformed into an explosive rock journey that would put the name Led Zeppelin into every music fan's lips. With his iconic Jimmy Page riff, Robert Plant's primal vocals and that infamous psychedelic middle section, whole of love defied expectations and became a defining anthem of the bands.
00:00:35
Speaker
Joining me to discuss this song is my co-host and fellow massive Led Zeppelin fan, Mr. Felipe Averin. Hey, bro. Doing great, man. And you? Yeah, yeah. Not bad, thank It's lovely day here where I am Sun's shining. It's been like this all week. It's been Blue Skies and lovely sun which must be it's lovely for me here in the countryside must be lovely for you down in richmond oh it's great yeah it's great here but and yeah it doesn't feel like the uk does no that's what i signed up for i wanted the rain yeah anyway led zeppelin and whole of love one of our favorite bands together from personally my favorite led zepp album uh the opening song and the song that if probably maybe apart from stairway to heaven
00:01:12
Speaker
everyone associates with Led Zeppelin. When you hear Zeppelin, you think it's their way to have a lot of love. Yeah, biggest hit in America, wasn't it? Yes, yeah, reached number four. Made it to, I think, number four. It did, yeah. Because they were not a singles band. That's what that's what and what is interesting about them. They they kind of refused to...
00:01:29
Speaker
to release singles they had they were forced to at some point to release singles but they uh always wanted the albums to be the main thing on the single you know you know because i and i understand why because i think they are an albums band really for sure yeah you know and and also a live band and just one one song being promoted uh like ah detached from the album it doesn't it doesn't show how great they are as a band i think yeah exactly well before we crack on a few little terms and conditions that we ask of you the listener and viewer if you're listening to us on apple spotify or amazon do us a favor Scroll down, hit the five stars, give us a little sentence, what you think of the show, and it helps us because we'd be seen by more people on the apps.
00:02:13
Speaker
And if you're watching us on YouTube, make sure to hit like and subscribe so you stay up to date with our new content. um So just kicking off with a few of the song details. So the song and the single was released on the 7th of November, 1969.
00:02:24
Speaker
The actual song was recorded between the 14th and 19th of April and the 28th and 30th of April in 1969 as well, shared between the Olympic Studios in London and the A&M Studios in Hollywood.
00:02:36
Speaker
is I think quite obviously a hard rock song is the genre clocking in at just over five and a half minutes, which is an interesting thing for a single. It was released on the Atlantic label. The songwriters were Led Zeppelin plus Willie Dixon, which we'll get to in a second. and It was produced by Jimmy Page, Eddie Kramer, and the B-side to the single was Living, Loving, Made.
00:02:56
Speaker
So without further ado, shall we go on? And you want to first talk about the controversy surrounding the song. So let's get this out of the way. Let's talk about the controversy. Let's talk about the elephant in the room or the Willie Dixon in the room, shall we say? Felipe, kick us off.
00:03:08
Speaker
Yeah, so the song is clearly based or admittedly ah based on You Need Love by Willie Dixon, which was recorded by Muddy Waters.
00:03:19
Speaker
So he had all those blues guys back in the day when they got their first um contracts with with labels, they they were recording each other's songs. And I don't think there's a Willie Dixon recording of this song. I looked for and I couldn't see one. Yeah.
00:03:35
Speaker
Muddy Waters made it famous. The song was called You Need Love. ah And what Led Zeppelin nicked from the song, and I'm using Robert Plant's words. He said they he nicked the the lyrics um and he said it was happily paid for.
00:03:53
Speaker
ah let you pause Let me pause you for one second just to tell the listeners and viewers that below in the show notes and description is a Spotify playlist that is dedicated to this episode. And we do this with all the episodes we do. If we're talking about an album, the playlist will have the full album in and any other songs we mention.
00:04:07
Speaker
Today's episode, it's got the song Whole Lotta Love In and a few others that we're going mention, including some covers and the original ones as well by Small Faces and Muddy Waters. So yeah, please carry Yeah, so so um so the song is called You Need Love, the original one.
00:04:22
Speaker
And ah the first Led Zeppelin album includes a lot of ah blues songs, blues classics and some Willie Dixon stuff. So there's a, I think what they got wrong, like big times, is not knowing where to draw the line.
00:04:36
Speaker
ah You know, what what is inspiration? What is... um a version of someone else's work. yeah but Plagiarism for me is when you don't give the credit and that's where I believe they got it wrong.
00:04:51
Speaker
like um If you listen to classic like rock and roll like Chuck Berry, like Fats Domino and if you listen to early blues music It's kind of really hard to draw that line.
00:05:02
Speaker
okay I'm not justifying nicking someone's music because that's not that's not the best way of coming up with ah with a hit song. yeah um Although in music we know that riffs and drum beats and lyrics, people tend to... to um get inspired by other people and sometimes make entire sections of songs or lyrics or melodies.
00:05:25
Speaker
The thing is, ah it's harder to draw that line with blues music, like early blues music, because everything is way too similar in a way. And I'm not saying in a bad way, because there's loads of similarities with the subjects that the lyrics are approaching, the sort of riffs and beats that people are coming up with.
00:05:43
Speaker
But now when Led Zeppelin came about, you had this like huge ah thing in the UK, which is like British bands doing their version of the blues. And Robert Plant once said that Led Zeppelin's style or genre would be contemporary blues.
00:05:59
Speaker
And I think that is great. It's not rock. is a version of blues is heavy blues. and But that's how they started. You can say that about the first album, and the first two albums, then they went more into folk and and and used other influences and and um it changed a lot their sound. But there's a lot of the blue stuff in the beginning.
00:06:20
Speaker
and I believe ah Jimmy Page said once that he was writing the riffs and he told Blunt to write lyrics for for the songs. and And he would sing someone else's lyrics, say, no, I'm i'm going to write something after. You know don't worry about it. Before the recording, I'm going to come up with my own lyrics.
00:06:37
Speaker
And very often he wouldn't. And he just ended up like recording someone else's phrases. ah Now, um you can quote one verse from someone, one line, one, you know,
00:06:50
Speaker
phrase maybe yeah one phrase you you can say that but like there's entire sections there like you need cooling like that and when he says woman you need love it's the same sort of ah melody and vibe and expression it's not the ah yeah those words could could have been used ah in a different way and he wouldn't notice the similarity but the main melody is pretty much the same yeah and even even the some of the the the um the specific ways he see he comments. So like when he says way down inside, you can hear that on both on the Small Faces version yeah and the Muddy Waters version. just The Small Faces version now, that's an interesting thing. I don't think they credited ah Willie Dixon.
00:07:35
Speaker
Either. I think they they they take it as their, because it's you need loving Right. The title is slightly different. Let's check that. Let's see if they credited it. And so, yeah, I recommend everyone to listen to the not there's no Willie Dixon version of it. As far as I'm concerned, listen to the Muddy Waters version with I think was recorded.
00:07:57
Speaker
was it Chess Records, wasn't it? The label back in the day. And Ronnie Lane is a singer from Small Faces. His vocal interpretation is for sure where Plant took the idea from.
00:08:12
Speaker
They even have a stop and it says like, woman, on you need love. The same, the ex exact same sort of ah ah thing that happens with Led Zeppelin and and the high pitch vocals, which is not common in blues music, but yeah it's a hard rock thing. And and and and ah there's more faces who are doing that kind of stuff.
00:08:29
Speaker
So um I think Plant and Page used to go to their gigs. So that's the thing. They saw them playing that song like that. See, that explains a lot. So I'm saying all of this and I say,
00:08:42
Speaker
i Can I just can't just tell you quickly that the Small Faces, um Willie Dixon didn't sue them because he didn't know that this cover existed, whereas Zeppelin's went so much bigger than their one.
00:08:53
Speaker
Exactly. Zeppelin's version of it it was so famous that like, like you know. On later releases of Small Faces stuff, Dixon was credited. So maybe maybe after. night So what happened, for those who don't know, is that Willie Dixon sued Led Zeppelin in 1985.
00:09:08
Speaker
ah Led Zeppelin paid out, settled and said, that's fine, but we're going to credit you on all the recordings going forward. I wonder if small faces were like, holy shit, I don't want Willie Dixon suing us. Let's just credit him in these subsequent releases.
00:09:22
Speaker
Yeah, exactly. So basically he got some money out of the song after. I think there was a bit too late. That's what I say. Like, uh, uh, Here's the way I draw the line. I want to know your opinion on this, Les.
00:09:32
Speaker
Okay. um You know when you have people sampling stuff nowadays, yeah right? Everyone is sampling. They take a drum beat out of James Brown song and they come up with a drum and bass thing or hip hop. or So it's really difficult in music to do something that is 100% original, which doesn't justify you just going copying everything out of someone and someone else's music.
00:09:53
Speaker
Yeah. um So when you take... ah small chunks of a song and turn into something else. Nowadays, it's much easier to do with technology. We just call it sampling. But then you need to credit people and you pay for it.
00:10:07
Speaker
yeah So that's where I draw the line, ah my opinion. Not that my opinion is relevant in this case at all, because I think Willie Dixon made a lot of money out of this and his family made a lot of money out of this. um as a consequence of the success of Whole Other Love.
00:10:21
Speaker
so And also a lot of people know him because of this song now. So if it wasn't Whole Other Love, a lot of people wouldn't know who Willie Dixon is. umm and And I think it it matters for him financially that he got the... ah ah the result he wanted by being credited as as a as a songwriter.
00:10:41
Speaker
So that's let's put it like this. Copying like this was um the early stages of sampling. So it's like, okay, I like i like this. I'm going to put this in my song.
00:10:54
Speaker
Now, you the problem is- Are you talking technically because, are you talking generically because technically you're wrong? Sampling is taking specific- The exact thing. Yeah, so yeah I'm just kidding.
00:11:07
Speaker
Cypress Hill, I never thought on this podcast I'd put a Cypress Hill song in the playlist, but it's going to happen today. cyprus Cypress Hill have a song called Hits from the Bone, where it takes Dusty Springfield's Son of a Preacher Man intro, little music part, and they sample that.
00:11:21
Speaker
So that's taking it like for like, and that James Brown brown drummer stuff that also went like for like, but they took the drums. So I mean, if you're if you're, unless you don't actually mean something. No, no, no, no. What I'm saying is like, is what I would call what something was back in the day when you couldn't just, yeah and you couldn't just extract a whole track out of a song and then record something on top of it.
00:11:43
Speaker
So I'm going to learn that part. I'm going to play or sing that part just like the original and do something else around it and then create something from it. Now the problem is, and that's where that's the,
00:11:54
Speaker
My opinion on this is the the the the only thing that I find 100% wrong is to not give the credit to from the beginning, because I think they thought they could get away with it.
00:12:05
Speaker
And I'm talking about my favorite band, guys, so I'm not having a go at Led Zeppelin. I'm just saying like they they could have just said from the beginning, you know, we took that Willie Dixon song and we took the melody and parts of the lyrics and we use our own riff and beat and that stuff. And we created this piece.
00:12:23
Speaker
This piece is based on ah you need love, but it's called a whole lot of love. And if you do that and you give the credit from from day one, that I believe that's totally, totally fine.
00:12:36
Speaker
I'm in agreement with you. That's for the problem is. So in 1985, Willie Dixon realized, well, you know ah ah I want a little share of the profits because I deserve. And I think they actually settled out of the court.
00:12:48
Speaker
They did, yeah. Yeah. He got credits and a certain sum of money that we would never know. Probably a lot. Yeah. So the thing is, I'm looking at Led Zeppelin 1, the album and the tracklist thing, and I'm seeing now, um you know, Anne Bredden is credited with Babe, I'm Gonna Leave You, Willie Dixon with You Shook Me, Willie Dixon with I Can't Quit You Baby. So now...
00:13:08
Speaker
we um we see that they're credited. I wonder how was in the first place. Yeah, Can't Quit Your ah um that was ah that was credited from the beginning. They never claimed, I think they never claimed that they wrote the song.
00:13:24
Speaker
How Many More Times. Yeah. It's based on a song called How Many More Years. Yeah, by Howling Wolf, isn't it? Yeah. So that one is not there. And even now they haven't credited him. so Yeah, exactly.
00:13:36
Speaker
But we'll see. um One thing I did want to say is that there's a... It's a show... I don't know. I feel like that in this day and age, there's such a... um There's such a seriousness around ownership. And maybe this began in the 80s when Willie Dixon did this. But talking... I've mentioned this before. and Do you know what? I reckon I mentioned this all the back in episode two when we did Led Zeppelin 2, which is one of the first episodes we ever did.
00:14:02
Speaker
In classical music, all the way back in the 12, 1800s, all of this stuff... You'd often have sections where there would be a whole little melody, a few bars that was taken an exact melody. So, you know Beethoven might have taken the exact melody that Mozart put in this symphony and he just put it in for for for like four bars.
00:14:26
Speaker
And back then, especially when i was studying classical music, we used the term, um oh God, I've forgotten the term, quoting? Quoting, that's it. Yeah, he's quoted Mozart here. And, you know, and the other, when I'm rus writing essays about it, you say, yeah. And in Barth 73, Mozart pays homage to Beethoven with this little thing, know, because it's it's almost like a sign of respect back then. yeah You know, it's like, wow, you know, Mozart wrote this incredible melody for this symphony. And I'm assuming Beethoven said, wow, that's really cool. I want to say in there.
00:14:57
Speaker
And he's quoting it. And I love that idea that I'm quoting it. But there again, there has to be a scale of, What's quoting? What's copying? Is there a legal ground? I think, i think let's let's face it, the whole problem ah ah surrounding those things is called money.
00:15:12
Speaker
Right. So if if you write a song that makes no money, you make no profits out of your song, and I copy your song and I make no profits out of it, no one ah one gives a flying flag.
00:15:26
Speaker
So that's the truth about it. That goes even further to what you're saying, because back in the day, you know, people think it opened my eyes when I was wondering, you know, actually, hold on. After I'd studied classical music, was like, hold on.
00:15:39
Speaker
Who's paying mate but but Beethoven and Mozart? who's How do they get paid? They must have released these as well. They were commissioned by the church or some rich They commissioned by rich people to make monies for their dances, for their parties, for their exquisite balls. They were paid by them.
00:15:55
Speaker
so it was literally a job. Beethoven was asked, listen, Beethoven, we need a 10-minute piece for this dance we're having Saturday. I'm sure you'd have more time than that. Beethoven was like, cool, right, music done, give me paycheck.
00:16:07
Speaker
So he wouldn't have cared. I'm assuming he wouldn't have cared that 10 years later, Mozart used the same little thing, you know, same little phrase in one of his pieces. ah Yeah, exactly. I think... um um Yeah, that's the thing. I think that they they they wouldn't think like that.
00:16:25
Speaker
oh You know, because we're we're talking about hundreds of years ago. Now, yeah ah the date the the music industry has, and well, theoretically, has an organized way of managing the money, yeah which we know is not really like that. ah But yeah, so that so my point is, because the Zeppelin version of it made um a lot of money for them,
00:16:48
Speaker
then yes, that so that there's a lawsuit because there's money involved. If there's no money, no one cares. So ah my point is, if there is money, you should put you know you should give it to everyone who helped that song to exist because ah the sound engineer gets to share know and the producer.
00:17:05
Speaker
And if it's based on someone else's music, that's my only issue with ah what Led Zeppelin did what by, ah you can call it ah stealing or borrowing or you know getting inspiration from the blues.
00:17:18
Speaker
ah you know And I think they did all of that, different levels of that. The thing is, if you give credit, it's all fine. At some points they didn't. That's where I think they got it wrong. ah Now let's talk about what is the the fact here.
00:17:31
Speaker
Is Holotel of a great song or is it not? it's yeah i't I was just to round off that section and say, that's that part done. You know, it's all settled now. Led Zeppelin paid Willie Dixon. he obviously they settled, which means he agreed that it was a good enough figure for him to let go of it.
00:17:49
Speaker
Done. Dusted. Now let's talk about how great of a rock song this is. Um, well i mean, what do you want to go first, man? I mean, you know, i every so what makes it original? got So, ah Just departing from from the the previous topic, um what is it about this song that is completely original or the most original thing about it?
00:18:09
Speaker
I think, first of all, is the guitar riff. yeahp And the effects, I think, that makes it. Also, it's not blues in a way. It doesn't swing like blues music. more straight.
00:18:21
Speaker
yeah So it's more like a funky, heavy funk kind of beat than the blues song. So if you compare to all the other versions, they're kind of a swung kind of vibe, which is which is the blues and jazz stuff. Now, ah this is straight. And the riff...
00:18:38
Speaker
is relentless. It's just there all the time, never stops. And I think it's a simple riff, a few notes, and just loops itself for the whole song apart from the chorus. yeah And it's like, ah it's basically a a one chord song, isn't Yeah.
00:18:53
Speaker
I think that's, you've touched already, the structure of the song is very different to what we expected from rock music. ah If you look at what the Beatles laid down in the 60s, it was very much chorus or as a chorus intro,
00:19:06
Speaker
verse, chorus, verse, chorus, middle eight, solo, outro, or chorus before outro. um And for this to be a lead single, five and a half minutes long from ah probably their most anticipated album, because after number one, people were like, well, what the hell's coming after this? And I know that, you know, three by no means was a letdown, but it was very different. It was folky. It was the bit of a departure from the blues and the rocky stuff. And four, I mean, we know about that album.
00:19:32
Speaker
The fact that this was the lead single chosen and it's five and a half minutes and it doesn't have a chorus or a verse chorus structure. Just that one riff over and over is quite telling that this was a unique song, even from the outset.
00:19:45
Speaker
Yeah. And it said like it doesn't have a chorus. It's like the chorus. comes as a natural progression from the it's just one structure it gets into the chorus without having any progression that leads to the chorus so neither so there is a chorus but it's like the verse it's like that's something that happens in blues music verse and chorus is one long thing yeah you don't have that division which shows the blues impact the blues influence yeah but in terms of structure what i like the most about it is that experimental uh middle section like because it's
00:20:19
Speaker
um i play in a zeppelin tribute band and it's it's a lot of fun to play this one but you'd need to come up with something for that middle section because that can only be that original one can't be reproduced by anyone like yeah it's just it's just a mess of um um studio effects and and and um you know, guitar effects and vocals and everything. so But the way they they get into that part for me is quite shocking because the song goes astray. It's a punch in your face from the beginning.
00:20:50
Speaker
Heavy riff, Robert Plant starts shouting the lyrics from the beginning. He gets into the chorus really quickly and the drums join the band for the chorus and then stay in the groove carries on from that.
00:21:02
Speaker
Then it's like, is just it's a car crash after that in a way. They finished the first chorus and it all collapses. It's like, guys, where are you going here? And it's it's just beautiful in a way because they just delivered their best chorus so far.
00:21:21
Speaker
yeah And they stop. And if they stop and they go on and on making noise. Let's put it like that. Making noise for a couple of minutes ah until they come back for a guitar solo, which is absolutely brilliant.
00:21:36
Speaker
and then they carry on with the song. It's just, it's very unpredictable in terms of structure. Yeah, but even the middle section, I think the word I used in the intro was chaotic and it is yeah because it's filled with everything. i mean I mean, it really does. It was an early,
00:21:50
Speaker
an early example of how to fit that psychedelic experimentation to hard rock. Now we've seen Pink Floyd and The Doors do it sort of earlier, Hendrix as well, in lead up to the 70s.
00:22:01
Speaker
But to hear that that that was rock music and that there is a difference between hard rock and rock. And I don't want to go into the specifics of it now, but this is a much harder rock song. Going off on a little tangent, this song, arguably the way that the bass and the guitar do their jobs is a precursor to heavy metal.
00:22:19
Speaker
Oh, yeah. Because you don't have a bait you don't have the bass guitar um grooving and playing root notes only. that the The riff, there's a thing that John Paul Jones does where he plays two notes at at the same time, which is called a double stop.
00:22:33
Speaker
And that was very unusual, but he does it to do power. It's like chord, isn't it? Yeah, a power chord. Yeah, yeah. Technically, no, but it has that effect of giving it more power. And that was unusual for a bass guitar leading into heavy metal and hard rock, like Deep Purple, Black Sabbath, Budgie, Raya Heap. you know This song, and the way Jimmy Page and John Paul Jones approached the riff playing of it, was was a pret you know was was ah was quite significant. and And because of that, hearing such heavy music coupled with also ah quite a bit psychedelia.
00:23:05
Speaker
And I mean, what effects have we got here? We've got swirling, panning, you know, where it goes. I remember listening to for the first time. My dad said to me, put this album on. And he moved, we were in the house and he moved the speakers. And he was like, right, put one there and one there. And I'm sat there like, what the hell's going on? I must have, I can't, I don't how old I would have been, maybe 10 or something.
00:23:24
Speaker
And I'm listening. He goes, right, close your eyes and hit play. And he hit play. And I remember getting to that middle part And the vocals going, the and look going round, I'm like, whoa, what the hell's happening? And it was just incredible. And and what else, though you know, yeah, the the delay, you know page Jimmy Page and Kramer used tape delay, lots of reverb, backwards echo and panning to achieve this mystical, psychedelic experience within the middle of this song. And it was just nuts, wasn't it?
00:23:51
Speaker
And it goes on for a longer than you think, but because there's things changing and happening, Man, do you know the one thing i never I never remembered about the song until today? The bloody percussion solo in it.
00:24:03
Speaker
yeah Incredible. just ah is It's at John Bonham, I imagine, right? Of course it is. John Bonham just playing this little conga solo, this little conga rhythm. There's a beat. It's the only thing with some sort of structure during that section, because that's a beat. And and it's it's kind of a loop.
00:24:22
Speaker
yeah And then everything else is going on top of that. And I think he keeps the hi-hat with the left foot as well going for a bit. So there's some element of rhythm, some element of groove, but it's mostly, as I said, chaotic. like yeah And but Jimmy Page, I'm going to i'm going to use the ah the ex exact words here. Jimmy Page said, those were evil sounds you're not supposed to hear on commercial radio.
00:24:46
Speaker
It's quite evil, isn't it? But then you wonder, one year later, Black Sabbath come out with the song Black Sabbath. You think, well, if Jimmy Page said this is evil, Ozzy and Giza and Tony are sat there saying, sorry, Bill as well, they all sat there going, well, hold on, this is a bit evil, but we can make it way more.
00:25:03
Speaker
And you start heavy metal, you know? Yeah, it's exactly. um Yeah. So there is there isn't yeah there's an element of heavy metal there for sure.
00:25:16
Speaker
but I think um the fact that he's saying it wasn't made for commercial radio and still was their biggest hit. So there is a a radio cut. I think it's like three minutes long. yeah think They just chopped that part.
00:25:30
Speaker
um The the um middle section. Yeah, the middle section. No good, though, is it? Well, there's another part where they stop, but then it goes straight into the vocals. So I think they chopped just that one, just the big instrumental or instrumental experimental section in the middle.
00:25:47
Speaker
Again, I hate radio edits. I hate radio edits. Yeah, I think it's just, why? Why would you do that? because people are not prepared for anything that's longer than three minutes. Well, don't listen. Go listen to your pop music. Yeah, exactly. Listen to something else. Listen to whatever pop radio music you want to listen to.
00:26:05
Speaker
But yeah, ah so there is a radio edit. Also, the other thing that made the song really popular was to be ah as the opening theme for Top of the Pops. for 11 years wow that's a long run yeah so it's funny ah the band that's probably like the least ah pop you can think of like that is a proper hard rock band uh you know the heaviest you could be at the time yeah and they are literally providing the music for top of the pops yeah there you go um see i mean i'll just just to tick off one of our categories i will just
00:26:43
Speaker
finish off with my pioneering hard rock and heavy metal thing by saying that, you know, on top of what I said about the riff, you've got heavy distortion in the guitar, very heavy, the aggressive drumming as well. And for me, that ties off wonderfully, this pioneering, showing what hard rock could become and what heavy metal would be, would become, you know, and Led Zeppelin did it with a blues inspired song.
00:27:03
Speaker
Anyway, why don't you take us, why don't we segue nicely from aggressive drumming into, you want to talk about John Bonham? Yeah, got talk about him, isn't it? I have to. I'm such a drummer. But the thing is, with the drum beat, there's another thing that should technically make make it less commercial. And I don't know how it works.
00:27:24
Speaker
ah Normally, you have the backbeat and in any rock or pop song or even heavy metal. You have the ah the the second and the fourth beats of the bar.
00:27:34
Speaker
kind of a standing out compared to everything else is where you so you're supposed to clap your hands, although some people don't. um So the snare drum that normally plays on two and four is playing on two and the second half of beat four.
00:27:51
Speaker
So he displaces the second backbeat by half a beat, which creates a kind of a...
00:28:00
Speaker
an effect of like being behind the beat or playing a bit slower. That's how I feel it. You think that makes it groovier? Well, what do you think that does to the listener? think it does because it actually follows the accents on the guitar. So that's the thing. What was normally you have a drummer playing one consistent beat that is really solid, really predictable. So the guitar player can play the riff on top of it and the riff can have a different accent.
00:28:22
Speaker
and take the song into a different direction but what John Barnum was doing he was just like John Paul Jones was doing this on the bass he was following the guitar accents like one by one with the drum beat which is not the usual ah way of drumming isn't we've seen him do it throughout the Zeppelin career you know in Kashmir when I learned about that 3-4 Paige is playing in 3-4 and he's playing 4-4 Yeah, Kashmir. Kashmir is playing 4-4 and he paid just playing 4-4. Which means every four bars, they're wrong. they're they're wrong
00:28:54
Speaker
they're out out of each other and every four bars they come together on the one. together And it's just fantastic. honour hair clever he's got that clever drumming instinct, doesn't he? To follow the guitar and the phrase, not the bar. That's what makes a good musician, man. You don't look at the bar of music and like, right, I need to nail this.
00:29:11
Speaker
You look at the phrase and say, okay, this might not line up through here, but when I hit ah beat one of bar five, we're going to come together. Well, but that's the thing, though, when you think about Kashmir, it's almost like it sounds like he's ignoring the guitar part completely, but then they come together eventually. In Hole of the Love, he is just following every single hit of the guitar.
00:29:31
Speaker
yeah So if there's a delayed accent on the fourth beat, that's what he plays on the snare. That's exactly what he does. So, right, I've seen a lot of people playing that. And It's really hard to capture the vibe because what it does, it doesn't only play those. And the snare drum for me is that the biggest thing about this groove. yeah It doesn't only play the backbeat and the displaced backbeat.
00:29:54
Speaker
There's like loads of ghost notes, it like which is like quieter notes played on the snare drum in between all the strong ones. So if you listen to isolated drum track, then you can you can kind of hear what I'm talking about.
00:30:08
Speaker
If you don't, if you're not a drummer or you're not a musician, The only way to perceive those notes is if you remove them. You don't listen. You can't hear them pretty much when they're there.
00:30:20
Speaker
But if if someone plays that groove without the ghost note, you're like, well, something is missing. yeah So that's the amount of detail that Bonham would put into a groove. It's the kind of stuff you can barely hear, but...
00:30:32
Speaker
Overall makes a huge difference. So I think so. this's John Bo Jones had this point about ah John Bonham not being just the the heavy hitter that everyone thought he was.
00:30:43
Speaker
So, you know, it was just a guy smashing the drums. He said, no, there was a lot of finesse in his playing. A lot of ah a quieter parts playing at the same time as the loud parts.
00:30:54
Speaker
So like that's like internal dynamics. It's not like going loud and quiet. It's being loud and quiet at the same time. So you have like ah kick and hi-hat playing really loud and have some really quiet notes on the snare in between those notes. So so he had you know that sense of dynamics really well developed. And it was... a I think in that and that sense out of all the ah heavy drummers out there he was for sure the one who had more... i can put it how can I put this? hey he make will one Maybe finesse is the right word? Yeah, finesse is the word. He had more finesse than most of the the heavy drummers out there and I don't think although he gets a lot of credit for for being one of the best drummers of all time ah still I think people don't don't realize this element of his playing up to this day so
00:31:45
Speaker
Yeah, I think the drum beat is for sure one of the main things in the song. You've mentioned the bass, you know, and yeah that's the other thing. Well, so we've we've spoken about guitar, bass and drums. We've got to talk about Robert Plant now and his vocals, which were, i mean, daring, that's a good word, provocative.
00:32:01
Speaker
sexual pornographic controversial maybe yeah exactly yeah ah i mean i book isn yeah all you do is listen to the song and you can hear it there is a raw sexual energy to it yeah with all this moaning and this yeah i think that's all you can call it really is moaning this sexual moaning and again for a song that became so successful at the end of the 60s to have such a daring vocal line, well, not no let's not say the vocal line, the the vocal sounds within the middle section.
00:32:32
Speaker
ah can just imagine a sketch where someone, you know, A Whole Lot of Love comes on. It's 1969, comes on the radio for the first time. And like, um you know, there's a there's ah there's a man reading the newspaper and the song comes on and he's like, what on earth's this? And then there's a kid eating dinner at the table and the mum drops the plate and she covers the kids ears. It's like, you know, you just imagine it. It's like, you kind of sat there going, what is this?
00:32:53
Speaker
Obviously, nowadays, with all the variety of music, it doesn't sound so out of place, but for the end of the 60s, man, it's quite easy. It's when people started to kind of ah challenge the ah the establishment in that way. If we want to sing like this, we will. If we want to talk about this subject, we will.
00:33:08
Speaker
I think that's, ah again, rock and roll, musical freedom, isn't it? Yeah, exactly. People wanted to express themselves in any way, which I find really interesting because, as I said, One thing that immediately sets Robert Plant apart from from the blues, which is his roots, it's the high-pitched vocals, right?
00:33:29
Speaker
You have a lot of like raw, aggressive ah vocals in blues music, but he had such a range that like no one had. So that's interesting. and But the fact he's moaning and doing all all that kind of stuff is such a contrast with his personality at the time, because he was quite shy.
00:33:49
Speaker
I was literally just going to say that because so whenever I think of Robert Plant, i I think if Robert Plant had been a, if he had looked like one of those glam metal guys in terms of the outrageous energy singing about having sex with your teacher, music videos that were outrageous, then I think you'd kind of look at this a little bit differently.
00:34:06
Speaker
But whenever I think of Robert Plant and I think of all this sexual stuff he does, I think of the photo of him playing that gi that gig with the dove that flew onto his hand. Because that is one of my favourite photos in rock history.
00:34:19
Speaker
if i'm If I'm not mistaken, that was complete accident. Like the dove just flew onto his hand. But it's just such a peaceful photo of such a peaceful man who just had an expressive voice. There's nothing wrong or outrageous or explicit in what Robert Plant is trying to do in this song. He's not trying to say, listen, guys, go and have a lot of sex. This is what we want in rock and roll.
00:34:39
Speaker
It's just his expression. is i think, yeah. yeah And maybe because when you look at his like stage persona ah in the early days of Zeppelin, he was not the the the guy you see on The Song Remains the Same.
00:34:54
Speaker
He was yeah like not moving around on stage too much, maybe not looking into the eyes of a person in the audience. like I don't think he had that self-confidence.
00:35:05
Speaker
he He knew he was surrounded by some of the best musicians in the scene. yeah so And he needed to be that... like well Imagine having to be the front man of a band that has three of the best instrumentalists of your time and you're like yeah well can i deliver so you're the front man you're not only a member of the band you're the one talking to the to the audience you're the one right right right there uh in front of everyone so i think I think he didn't have that self-confidence at the time, probably develop that later because you can see is his attitude on stage changed a lot and is much more relaxed you know a few years after.
00:35:47
Speaker
Maybe as a consequence of this song or the album itself, yeah i think he expressed himself so ah in such a free ah way in this song. like It's... is it It's so... ah the you You can ah smell the freedom when he's singing.
00:36:06
Speaker
It's just like, I'm going to sing in any way I want. And I think maybe that's one of the things that helped him to to to reach another level of of a live performance. And I think this song contains...
00:36:17
Speaker
ah the best of his abilities as a singer ah you know the improvisational character of his vocals the aggressive ah vocals and expression it's all there I mean I think i think it's one of his best tracks as a singer quite early in his career which is impressive anything else?
00:36:39
Speaker
no man that's what we're done again it's one of those things we could talk about the song all day let's talk about the the accolades and what it did for them so it was Zeppelin's their debut album was successful but then to follow it up with this song this became their breakthrough worldwide it hit number four in the US and really did cement their status as up and coming rock stars.
00:36:58
Speaker
um It is one of the most famous rock songs ever. So I'm just going to quickly fly through all of where it sits in these charts. So Spins, 100 Greatest Songs, it's number 39. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, it's one of the 500 songs that shaped rock and roll.
00:37:12
Speaker
Classic rock, 10 of the best songs ever. It was number 30. That doesn't make sense. Maybe there was a... ah Anyway, Rolling Stones, 500 Greatest Songs of All Time. It was number 75.
00:37:24
Speaker
Q's 100 Greatest Guitar Tracks Ever, number three. Rolling Stones, 100 Greatest Guitar Songs of All Time, number 11. VH1's Greatest Hard Rock Songs of All Time, number three. Radio 2's Top 100 Greatest Guitar Riffs, it came number one.
00:37:37
Speaker
And Rolling Stone's, oh, the revised 500 Greatest Songs of All Time, it moved down to 128. But it is there. Every greatest rock song list, every greatest guitar riff list, it's there.
00:37:49
Speaker
And that's a testament to how significant it is as a rock song, isn't it? Yeah, and the fact is that's one of the riffs and one of the songs that changed the direction of rock music altogether. As I said, like you know, well, psychedelia, heavy metal, hard rock, guitar riffs, drumming, everything. It's it's funky. It's um heavy.
00:38:10
Speaker
It's sexy. It's intense. It's got everything. and so So basically, this song is about emotion like all sorts of emotions it's just beautiful uh also i recommend everyone to listen to tina turner's version of this song which i didn't know uh until this morning and uh believe me not and uh it is such such a great version of it funky oh you know as funky as tina can get old she's the only one who can who can do that sort of a um funk interpretation of ah of a rock song yeah uh and still make it sound as good in my opinion as good as the original uh but yeah i haven't listened to that one as well all those tracks are in the playlist below which you find in the show notes but thank you for joining us for another episode of the long live rock and roll podcast um we hope you join us you know again if you're listening on apple and spotify and amazon go down
00:39:02
Speaker
Give us a little review and it throws us the world of good. It takes 20 seconds of your time that means the world to us. And if you're watching on YouTube, make sure you like and subscribe to stay up to date with all of our content. Yeah, thanks for being with us once again. Thanks for listening to the podcast. We really appreciate you guys um you know sharing and listening and commenting and interacting with us. Yeah, thank you very much.
00:39:26
Speaker
Keep on rocking, everyone, and don't do anything I wouldn't do. As usual, guys, take care and long live rock and roll.