# Deep Tracks - Led Zeppelin - "Led Zeppelin IV"



## Guest (Aug 8, 2018)

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Please *choose up to five selections* for this particular poll.

On all polls created if you click on the number of votes following the song title the username of all voters and their chosen selections will appear.

The tunes themselves will be found below the poll itself as links rather than as embedded videos due to bandwidth issues for those who wish to reacquaint themselves with a tune that may have receded a bit too far into the past to be remembered with the clarity that came when they were first released...

Next up is - Led Zeppelin - "Led Zeppelin IV" -

"The untitled fourth studio album by the English rock band Led Zeppelin, commonly known as "Led Zeppelin IV", was released on 8 November 1971 by Atlantic Records.

After the band's previous album "Led Zeppelin III" received lukewarm reviews from critics, they decided their fourth album would officially be untitled, and would be represented instead by four symbols chosen by each band member, without featuring the name or any other details on the cover. This has led to confusion and disagreement with fans and critics over what to call it.

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The four symbols representing (from left to right);
at the top; Page, Jones
at the bottom; Bonham and Plant

After the lukewarm, if not confused and sometimes dismissive, critical reaction "Led Zeppelin III" had received in late 1970, Page decided that the next Led Zeppelin album would not have a title, but would instead feature four hand-drawn symbols on the inner sleeve and record label, each one chosen by the band member it represents. The record company were strongly against the idea, but the group stood their ground and refused to hand over the master tapes until their decision had been agreed.

Releasing the album without an official title has made it difficult to consistently identify. While most commonly called "Led Zeppelin IV", Atlantic Records catalogues have used the names "Four Symbols" and "The Fourth Album". It has also been referred to as "ZoSo" (which Page's symbol appears to spell), Untitled and Runes. Page frequently refers to the album in interviews as "the fourth album" and "Led Zeppelin IV", and Plant thinks of it as "the fourth album, that's it".The original LP also has no text on the front or back cover, and lacks a catalogue number on the spine.

The album is one of the best-selling albums of all time with more than 37 million copies sold as of 2014. As of 2018 It is tied for third highest-certified album in the US by the Recording Industry Association of America at 23× Platinum.

In 2003, the album was ranked number 69 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of "The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time", which described it as "the peak of Seventies hard rock"."

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Led_Zeppelin_IV

Your commentary on any and every aspect of the album and especially any memories reawakened as a result of the poll is welcomed.


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## Guest (Aug 8, 2018)

"Black Dog" -






"Rock and Roll" -






"The Battle of Evermore" -






"Stairway to Heaven" -






"Misty Mountain Hop" -






"Four Sticks" -






"Going to California" -






"When the Levee Breaks" -


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

I recollect that _Stairway to Heaven_ held some sort of record for most-played song on the radio, and maybe still does. After _Kashmir_, it's still my 2nd favorite Zep song. My intuition is that _Stairway_ is the single enormous structural support for the album's stratospheric listing among the top three best-selling albums in the US, whereas Zeps One and Three contain more equally fine songs, with none towering over the others (an opinion). _The Battle of Evermore_ was perhaps the only song where Zep was later overshadowed by a cover: the version by their most devoted followers the Wilson Sisters of Heart, singing as The Lovemongers. The combined voices of Robert Plant and Sandy Denny are no match for the taut, keening harmony of Ann and Nancy Wilson, who elevate the song to the next level.


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## elgar's ghost (Aug 8, 2010)

As I suspect with a number of people, over-exposure has made listening to StH more of a duty these days than the total pleasure it used to be when the song was as fresh as everything else on '_IV_' - I freely admit that on some occasions I've skipped it when listening to the album. Not just radio's fault - a gazillion rock discos also used to flog this and _Whole Lotta Love_ to death when they could easily have played something else by the band.

_Black Dog_ and _Rock and Roll_ is still one the great opening 1-2s, though.


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## starthrower (Dec 11, 2010)

Probably there finest effort in the studio. Great songs and production. Black Dog is my pick for the zenith of 70s hard rock tunes. But as for deep tracks I'll go with Four Sticks, and The Battle Of Evermore. Misty Mountain Hop is great too, but that one got a bit more radio play. I suppose drummers would pick When The Levee Breaks for that great kit sound and groove.


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## EddieRUKiddingVarese (Jan 8, 2013)

_Rock and Roll "_


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## starthrower (Dec 11, 2010)

There aren't 5 "deep tracks" on this album.


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## tdc (Jan 17, 2011)

Well I don't know what 'deep tracks' means exactly, but I think this album is a masterpiece and Zeppelin's finest album. I chose 5 favorites - The Battle of Evermore, Stairway, Four Sticks, Going to California, and When the Levee Breaks. The other songs I like a lot too. 

The Battle of Evermore might just be my favorite Led Zep song. I say that with a twinge of guilt as I'm a huge Bonham fan and he does not perform on this particular track...oh well, it is what it is.

I generally enjoy reading Strange Magic's thoughts on music, but here I must strongly disagree with him. I've listened to a little bit of Heart's rendition of the Battle of Evermore and I had to turn it off because it lacked this ancient medieval magic feel I get from the original - and I really like Heart. I think the only cover of a Zeppelin song I can remember liking is The Stone Temple Pilots version of Dancing Days, which to me perhaps matches (but does not improve on) the original.


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## EddieRUKiddingVarese (Jan 8, 2013)

starthrower said:


> There aren't 5 "deep tracks" on this album.


Agreed, its was heavy rock for the masses


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## tdc (Jan 17, 2011)

EddieRUKiddingVarese said:


> Agreed, its was heavy rock for the masses


The irony is your favorite track is Rock n' Roll on this album which shows you gravitate towards their 'heavy rock for the masses' side. Lets not pretend Zeppelin was so one-dimensional. This album is multi-faceted and dynamic. Zappa could only dream of coming up with something remotely as inspired.

Zeppelin is actually a great example showing it is possible for musicians to become massively popular, yet still retain artistic integrity. Of course when any band or artist gets this popular there will be jealousy and haters, that is nothing new.


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## Norman Gunston (Apr 21, 2018)

Eww touchy touchy
I say if your gonna make cliche rock you may as well go all out ie rocknroll as zep did 
Stairway sh!ts me to tears


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## tdc (Jan 17, 2011)

Norman Gunston said:


> Eww touchy touchy
> I say if your gonna make cliche rock you may as well go all out ie rocknroll as zep did


Zeppelin didn't make cliché rock. They were a band many others copied after the fact - those are the bands now making cliché rock. The early bands that are pioneers of a style aren't cliché.

(And just a general comment, don't bother please with the Zeppelin are rip offs bla bla bla. We've been through that enough, great artists "steal" sometimes. The end.)


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## Guest (Aug 9, 2018)

starthrower said:


> There aren't 5 "deep tracks" on this album.


There are 8 tunes on the album and thus there are 8 deep tracks on it. "Deep" means nothing more than just looking at the album in its entirety. You can choose 5 tunes that cracked the Top 40 or 5 tunes that are heard exclusively on AOR radio or any combination whatsoever of hit tunes and obscure never-heard-anywhere-by-anyone tunes that are shunned by one and embraced by another...

It's a pretty simple concept - which tunes unite us? - which tunes divide us? - How are we alike? - How are we different? What do we have in common? - Why does one tune matter to one person but not to another?

How did Elgar's Ghost come to have such strikingly superb taste in music (overlooking for the sake of argument that his choices almost always mirror mine - :lol ? …

Why does literally almost every poll created in the "Deep Tracks" series have one tune that stands alone with but a single vote? That tune means something to someone - what is that "something"? - and who is that "someone"?...

It's "infotainment" - just meant to be a fun way for us to get to know one another and to find kindred spirits who share our passions...

I genuinely don't care if anyone even votes on the polls - all I'm interested in is getting people to click on the links which lead to the tunes themselves and to just listen...

I really don't care about how someone feels about "Stairway to Heaven" in 2018... I want to know how you felt when you took the album home and heard it for the very first time in 1971. The first time that I heard it I played it six times in a row and then I took it around to my friends and said "you absolutely have to listen to this - this is amazing".

I'm just trying to dust off fifty years worth of dust and grime on something that had a profound effect upon all of our lives... or at least it did on my life... Yours? - I don't know - you tell me - and the rest of us...


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## Guest (Aug 9, 2018)

Duplicate post created by hitting "return" instead of "enter"... my apologies...

But why waste a post, eh? -

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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

Norman Gunston said:


> Eww touchy touchy
> I say if your gonna make cliche rock you may as well go all out ie rocknroll as zep did
> Stairway sh!ts me to tears


You could call _Rock and Roll_ cliché rock. You could call _D'yer Mak'er_ cliché rock, along with _Crocodile Rock, Uptown Girl_ and so many more. And don't forget the cliché Prokofiev First Symphony. Terribly cliché. Or you can understand them, enjoy them, and embrace them as homages to past genres and artists. If you are incapable of such, you can call them cliché.

As for _Stairway to Heaven_, you are clearly not the audience for whom it was composed, and very likely are merely annoying yourself unnecessarily by listening to the music of Led Zeppelin, as Stairway can be said to typify their œuvre.


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

tdc said:


> Well I don't know what 'deep tracks' means exactly, but I think this album is a masterpiece and Zeppelin's finest album......The Battle of Evermore might just be my favorite Led Zep song. I say that with a twinge of guilt as I'm a huge Bonham fan and he does not perform on this particular track...oh well, it is what it is...... I've listened to a little bit of Heart's rendition of the Battle of Evermore and I had to turn it off because it lacked this ancient medieval magic feel I get from the original - and I really like Heart.


tdc, we're clearly both Zep and Heart fans, and I salute your good taste and insight. However we must disagree on Evermore, as I get much more of that ancient medieval magic feeling from the almost "Appalachian" keening of The Lovemongers' version. I'd go so far as to claim The Lovemongers' version is closer to a hypothetical Fairport Convention version of the same song, and that Sandy Denny herself would prefer the Wilsons' effort. But, sadly, we'll never know ........


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## Belowpar (Jan 14, 2015)

RE Stairway and e.g. much of the Beatles later work, it is a curse of the modern day that Radio Stations, Shops and Restaurants choose playlists that are all about the familiar. Those tracks hold zero interest to me now and if STH came on I'd turn over.

Sad because once I loved it.


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

Belowpar said:


> RE Stairway and e.g. much of the Beatles later work, it is a curse of the modern day that Radio Stations, Shops and Restaurants choose playlists that are all about the familiar. Those tracks hold zero interest to me now and if STH came on I'd turn over.
> 
> Sad because once I loved it.


A sad business indeed! I am so lucky in that once I like a piece of popular music, I always continue to like it. Perpetual adolescence!


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## Guest (Aug 10, 2018)

tdc said:


> Well I don't know what 'deep tracks' means exactly...


This week it means something different than it did last week and next week it will mean something different than it does this week.

I've personally read at least six separate explanations of what the term is supposed to mean and every single one of them was different.

I strongly suspect that not even the OP himself knows what "Deep Tracks" means...

Just being honest OP... so no offense, eh?


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## EddieRUKiddingVarese (Jan 8, 2013)

tdc said:


> Zeppelin didn't make cliché rock. They were a band many others copied after the fact - those are the bands now making cliché rock. The early bands that are pioneers of a style aren't cliché.
> 
> (And just a general comment, don't bother please with the Zeppelin are rip offs bla bla bla. We've been through that enough, great artists "steal" sometimes. The end.)


So Jimmy Wrote Dazed and Confused or am I just Confused


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## tdc (Jan 17, 2011)

EddieRUKiddingVarese said:


> So Jimmy Wrote Dazed and Confused or am I just Confused


Yes he did (write the music). I acknowledge the bass line was lifted from an earlier obscure piece, and then put to better use by Jimmy who created a masterpiece. This is essentially the same thing J.S. Bach did when he took the bass line from an earlier work and used it in his Passacaglia and Fugue in C minor.


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## tdc (Jan 17, 2011)

The _music_ on Led Zep I is all original (except where credited otherwise), the only exception being the short instrumental track _Black Mountainside_, which credit should be given to Bert Jansch, however the feel of Black Mountainside as an instrumental with the use of the tabla is quite far removed from the Jansch folk song. _Lyrically_ Zep I and part of II are the least original, and I can see why they ruffled some feathers there. But the vast majority of their work is their own, as much as other rock bands anyway. The rip off accusations have been way over blown and recently (and justly) the Stairway accusations were thrown out of court.


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## Norman Gunston (Apr 21, 2018)

tdc said:


> The _music_ on Led Zep I is all original (except where credited otherwise), the only exception being the short instrumental track _Black Mountainside_, which credit should be given to Bert Jansch, however the feel of Black Mountainside as an instrumental with the use of the tabla is quite far removed from the Jansch folk song. _Lyrically_ Zep I and part of II are the least original, and I can see why they ruffled some feathers there. But the vast majority of their work is their own, as much as other rock bands anyway. The rip off accusations have been way over blown and recently (and justly) the Stairway accusations were thrown out of court.


You must be living on a different planet to me. You believe the credits on Led Zep I , are you related to jimmy or Peter Grant by any chance


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## tdc (Jan 17, 2011)

Norman Gunston said:


> You must be living on a different planet to me. You believe the credits on Led Zep I , are you related to jimmy or Peter Grant by any chance


No, I think the credits could be better on Zep I, but that is due to the lyrics, not the music, with the exception of _Black Mountainside_.


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## EddieRUKiddingVarese (Jan 8, 2013)

But Dazed and Confused, exactly what did Jimmy write - not the words or the music as both were by Jake Holmes- Jimmy was too lazy to even change the name of the song. Its plagiarism of the worst kind.


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## tdc (Jan 17, 2011)

EddieRUKiddingVarese said:


> But Dazed and Confused, exactly what did Jimmy write - not the words or the music as both were by Jake Holmes- Jimmy was too lazy to even change the name of the song. Its plagiarism of the worst kind.


Yes the song title, (which are part of the lyrics) should have been changed I agree. The amount Zeppelin added to the track musically is enough for me to see it as an original track if the lyrics/title were changed.


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## Merl (Jul 28, 2016)

I must admit that when I play this album i skip Stairway 9 out of 10 times as I've heard it so many times it's become far too familiar. The first two tracks make the album for me. Black Dog is just awesome. It was a great album when I was growing up and remains so. Probably still my favourite Zep album.


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

EddieRUKiddingVarese said:


> But Dazed and Confused, exactly what did Jimmy write - not the words or the music as both were by Jake Holmes- Jimmy was too lazy to even change the name of the song. Its plagiarism of the worst kind.


Eddie, if it will make you happy (always my goal!), we will agree that your example is plagiarism, but of the best kind. Here's an interesting article, with many examples, from pictorial art:

https://usaartnews.com/events/fine-art/plagiarism-and-clones-in-the-history-of-painting


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## philoctetes (Jun 15, 2017)

I never thought Zep was mass market, but I was just a kid. I was aware of their plagiarism but was hooked anyway. Black Dog was kinda shocking on first hearing, like Immigrant Song on LZIII. Zep was good at torquing the ears like that until Graffiti, which was a brilliant recap of their career as a band, but wasn't as fresh and risky. After that it was downhill with a few bright moments. The PG tour was less exciting than the Houses tour,of the two I saw, and so on, as their music became routine.

I thought Houses was pretty outrageous at first and loved it then but I think it has aged the worst of the first six albums. Dancing Days has become my favorite track over the long term. But that's Houses.

Favorite track here? Over the long haul, probably Going to California. I heard Jimmy stole it from Otis Redding  Side 2 may be one of their most perfect sides.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

philoctetes said:


> I never thought Zep was mass market, but I was just a kid.


LZ was a mainstay of Atlantic Records and a hugely successful touring band. "They are one of the best-selling music artists in the history of audio recording; various sources estimate the group's record sales at 200 to 300 million units worldwide. With RIAA-certified sales of 111.5 million units, they are the second-best-selling band in the US. Each of their nine studio albums placed in the top 10 of the Billboard album chart and six reached the number-one spot." (Wiki)

Not mass market? Hmmm...


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## philoctetes (Jun 15, 2017)

Oh Ken, you're such a slave to numbers!

Mass Market, to me, was Top 40 AM radio. I didn't grow up in California where radio was cool, and nobody played Led Zeppelin in my broadcast space except one very weak FM station. We shared records a lot to hear new music. It was always a kick to hear WLS at night.

Before Zep accumulated all those numbers, they were not rushed into the rock and roll elite. I saw that Jimmy's guitar work and the band's sound was often underestimated by critics. Sure, Jimmy overdubbed himself a lot, but to good use I thought. In concert it was a different experience, one that left my ears ringing.

Anyway, I owe them my earliest appreciation of Leadbelly and early Americana, from LZIII. I recall how that album was touted by Time Magazine along with Blind Faith as the work of two great "supergroups". Personally i could listen to LZIII once more while wrapping fish with that awful Blind Faith cover (either one) and using the disc as a coaster.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

philoctetes said:


> Oh Ken, you're such a slave to numbers!


"When you can measure what you are speaking about, and express it in numbers, you know something about it, when you cannot express it in numbers, your knowledge is of a meager and unsatisfactory kind." --Lord Kelvin


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## philoctetes (Jun 15, 2017)

"Ludwig Boltzmann, who spent much of his life studying statistical mechanics, died in 1906 by his own hand. Paul Ehrenfest, carrying on the work, died similarly in 1933. Now it is our turn to study statistical mechanics"

States of Matter, David L. Goodstein, Chapter One, Page 1


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

philoctetes said:


> "Ludwig Boltzmann, who spent much of his life studying statistical mechanics, died in 1906 by his own hand. Paul Ehrenfest, carrying on the work, died similarly in 1933. Now it is our turn to study statistical mechanics"
> 
> States of Matter, David L. Goodstein, Chapter One, Page 1


OTOH, Lord Kelvin died of an excess of liquor and sexual activity. Or so I imagine! The composer Peter Warlock (Philip Heseltine) predicted his similar death in a premature epitaph:

Here lies Warlock the composer 
Who lived next door to Munn the grocer.
He died of drink and copulation, 
A sad discredit to the nation.


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## Phil loves classical (Feb 8, 2017)

tdc said:


> The irony is your favorite track is Rock n' Roll on this album which shows you gravitate towards their 'heavy rock for the masses' side. Lets not pretend Zeppelin was so one-dimensional. This album is multi-faceted and dynamic. *Zappa could only dream of coming up with something remotely as inspired.*
> 
> Zeppelin is actually a great example showing it is possible for musicians to become massively popular, yet still retain artistic integrity. Of course when any band or artist gets this popular there will be jealousy and haters, that is nothing new.


I agree except for the reference to Zappa.


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## Belowpar (Jan 14, 2015)

So the story goes that the band are in the Studio and Bonham shows the others this great drum lick he's heard.






(Drummer was Earl Palmer.)

Page and Jones jam along and a 'new' song is born.

Plagiarism? Homage (the Lyrics are tangentially referential)?

You decide, but to these ears it's a total blast and a better use of a musical fragment.


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