“For Your Life”

A pair of bullseyes aside, Presence really marked the band’s turn into a disproportionately long, unexpectedly poorly-lit corner where they went from sounding only like Led Zeppelin to sounding like a band that was trying to sound like Led Zeppelin. Plenty of critics, historians, and generally flippant youths will point to how the world around this band was changing, but left unsaid is how the world within this band was changing, too: Plant’s voice; Page’s approach; the ability of literally everyone involved to simultaneously fire on all cylinders. Here we find one of Page’s best bridges chased by some of Jones and Bonham’s most plodding arrangements, a nice tambourine flourish buried at the bottom of the mix, and a cool 15-count meter rendered unplayable all obscuring what is, at its heart, one of Zeppelin’s few message songs delivering a specifically bizarre sort of anti-message (and an oddly grizzled one at that, considering this band’s relationship with not just drugs but drug users to boot).
Legend and lore both have it the fellows wrote this song more or less on the spot, and if we are to accept this as the sign of a band losing its step then we owe it to ourselves to also try (even in vain) to imagine how giant those steps must have been to begin with. Whether that’s a testament to their ability to keep moving forward or their inability to say no to a challenge is really up to whoever was—and is—still listening.
Grade: C-

