Happy 55th Anniversary to Led Zeppelin’s second studio album Led Zeppelin II, originally released in the US October 22, 1969 and in the UK October 31, 1969.
Back in January, Led Zeppelin’s eponymous debut turned 55. Writing about it for this very website was a pleasure and now I’m back because Led Zeppelin II turns 55 this week.
Black Sabbath managed the same release pattern of debut and follow-up in the same year. I attribute it to a sort of black magic. Both are bands of huge substance and sound, impressing themselves upon musicians of every era and genre since their inception. Both are among the forefathers of heavy metal and both never get old.
But Zeppelin came first. Their sound is singular and yet wide-ranging. As a blues band, they managed to stretch the genre’s spine across eight studio albums and sixteen singles. Enough leeway for ten compilation albums. Ten! Which is a funny thought considering their studio albums each play like a greatest hits collection.
The power of Led Zeppelin is in the musicianship of each man. There were many English blues bands of the 1960s and ‘70s, but none of them could do what Page, Plant, Bonham, and Jones did. They played so tightly as a four piece and Page himself was their producer, allowing the band’s input to be considered first and last. Zeppelin’s records were made with such passion and care. Specifically the first four, infamously numbered, all play like one record. But each song on Led Zeppelin II was recorded, mixed, and produced at a different studio while the band was touring. Thankfully, along the way they hooked up with the now-legendary Eddie Kramer for the first time.
LZ II yielded the band their first top-ten hit, the record’s only single and first track, “Whole Lotta Love.” The album was number one in the UK and US, and in many countries around the world.
But for me, the album starts on track three, “The Lemon Song.” I have vivid memories of listening to it as I drove around suburban South Jersey in high school. “Squeeze me babe, till the juice runs down my leg.” I loved how blatant the song was despite my sexual inexperience. Friends did a double take, asking me what he just said, and I told them. But I wasn’t daydreaming about lemons, I was falling in love with the bass. John Paul Jones’ playing on “The Lemon Song” grabs at the blues in a way that still mesmerizes me no matter how many times I hear it. As a rhythm section, John Paul Jones and Bonham moved together as one.
Listen to the Album:
A song borrowing from Howlin’ Wolf and Robert Johnson, songwriting credits for “The Lemon Song” are first credited to Bonham before them, and then Page, Plant, and Jones. The songwriting credits across their albums are a small clue to who was leading the band where, like whether it was Lennon or McCartney singing to announce whose Beatles song it was. Bonham’s drive on the drums is forward unlike Plant’s vocals. He kicks it off with a gong before moving around the kit, his sticks extensions of his arms.
Describing John Bonham’s drumming is impossible. It’s like trying to explain what rock & roll is and why we all love it so much. For me it was always about their volume. It drowned out anything else, anywhere. Led Zeppelin is the first band I ever loved. To write about them, personally, is an exercise in restraint.
The first time I heard Led Zeppelin was, coincidentally, Led Zeppelin II. It was a rainy day and I was working on my French 1 homework at the kitchen table: eighth grade. Dad pulled a CD out of his collection and put it on the kitchen stereo. I stared into the jewel case, the yellow clouds and pink straight letters “Led Zeppelin” hovering around them, the zeppelin-like shape, and the faces of strangers. Page, Plant, Bonham, and Jones are of course among them but I didn’t know that then. When Dad hit play, my trajectory in life drastically changed.
Five years later I would write my college application essay about the album when I struggled to find meaning in anything. Explaining myself on the page made me feel clueless about the future. Zeppelin was my passion, so I wrote to the music. I’d lay on the floor in front of the stereo, my head at the speakers’ sweet spot. It calmed me and still does. Zeppelin eases my existential pain, through the throbbing and moaning, organ movements, and Page’s screaming solos. Bad days, rage, anger, frustration, traffic jams, or clogged memories are all cleared by Zeppelin’s volume.
Zeppelin’ sound announced their presence but their precision cemented their status.
“What Is and What Should Never Be” plays with panning, the recording technique that pivots the sound from left to right and back again, like the Doppler effect. It shows off what Page is capable of as a producer. He knows what he wants beyond just controlling the recording; he wants to play with it until it’s at its best. After “Whole Lotta Love,” “What Is and What Should Never Be” slows us down just before the six-minute sex jam “The Lemon Song.” “Thank You” is the most straightforward Zeppelin love song on the LP, twinkling with organ and silence.
Then there’s the back half. Behind the riff on “Heartbreaker,” Bonham’s drums echo each other. You can hear Plant pull his head away from the microphone so he doesn’t blow out the levels. Page’s solo climaxes as everyone takes a breath in silence before joining in to create a symphony of organized chaos. It bleeds effortlessly into “Living Loving Maid (She’s Just A Woman),” which acts more as movement between songs. By the time we’re on the song’s merry go round, Page’s guitar winds around in the background, a pulled, psychedelic turn.
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“Ramble On” is the first Zeppelin song inspired by The Lord of The Rings (later they’d pen “Misty Mountain Hop” and “The Battle of Evermore”). They stack layers on each other. You can hear Bonham’s palms on the drum heads, Page circling him, until Plant’s reverbed vocals demand a thicker percussion.
Which brings us to “Moby Dick,” the instrumental live wire. The track is an edit of many Bonham jam sessions Jimmy Page walked in on, recorded, and pieced together. Based on twelve-bar blues, he would play it in concert for twenty or thirty minutes, or longer, always all alone.
Plant’s harmonica on “Bring It On Home” hums us back into the station. It sounds like they needed just one more, but suddenly two minutes in, it takes a wide turn with its ass out. Luckily there are only clouds to bump into and they have the whole sky to themselves. Layered electric guitar, over and over, hover over Jones and Bonham mirroring each other. Plant’s voice is clear until those last twenty seconds when it submerges, along with the song, into the fog.
Like so many Zeppelin tunes, the movements in “Bring It On Home” show us how they play with songwriting, recording, and performance stretching one song into many until the trick is clear: it’s all just one. Through mountains, castles, fields, and ranges, Zeppelin’s mystique is still unmatched, in sound and in legacy.
LISTEN:
Editor's note: this anniversary tribute was originally published in 2019 and has since been edited for accuracy and timeliness.