File 37: Led Zeppelin III
In the history of music, there has been a number of albums that were highly anticipated before it’s release. This usually happens when the artist is striking gold in a row or they have such a mysterious image you never know when they are dropping something next. A few that come to mind is Adele when she was releasing the follow-up to her album, 21, by releasing 25. Frank Ocean took a 4 year hiatus before releasing his second album, Blonde. Marvin Gaye’s What’s Going On was wildly anticipated due to him falling into a depression and being such a disappearance from not only the public but his record label. Now for money’s worth, the most anticipated album of all time is Bad by Michael Jackson. It was his follow up to the best-selling album of all time which was Thriller, so the stakes were high. One album in particular was so highly anticipated that advance orders in the United States alone were nearing into the millions. The band who had that type of popularity at that time was Led Zeppelin and the album they were gearing up to release was their 3rd studio album, Led Zeppelin III.
Led Zeppelin were becoming the new faces of rock music with only a year of music under their belt. They released their debut and 2nd studio album in the same calendar year (1969) with critical and commercial success not only in their home country of the UK but also in the US. Due to intensive touring that year, the following year the band took a break. Lead singer Robert Plant suggested to lead guitarist Jimmy Page that they should seclude to a cottage out in the Wales to find inspiration for the forthcoming album. They flew back to London later on in the year to record the album and found that they were making a musical change. The band’s first two albums were more heavy metal and big guitar riffs but this time around they shifted more into psychedelic folk acoustic records while playing a different range of new instruments. There were still some heavy metal songs on the LP but as a whole it showed they wanted to take risks.
The album cover was made by artist Zacron, who was a friend of Jimmy Page from college. The cover is a collage of photos he took of each band member in the spring and the interior background of the cover are a bunch of photos that have to deal with flying. It was one of the most anticipated albums of 1970 and Zeppelin knew if the feedback was similar to their first 2 albums, they would be the best band in the world. Led Zeppelin III was released on October 5, 1970.
Immigrant Song is the intro and would go on to become one of the band’s signature songs. They wrote the song while on tour in Iceland which makes sense with the second line being “We come from the land of the ice and snow”. Robert Plant explained that the whole song was about their time there so it was meant to serve as the first song on the album. They wanted it to be different and it was. Page’s heavy guitar riff and Plant’s wailing cry in the chorus makes for one standout track not only on the album, but in the history of music.
Friends follows shortly afterwards and displays Zeppelin in their folk ways for the first time. You can heavily hear the influence they got from staying in that cottage in this record. It sounds very dramatic but at the same time melodically beautiful because of the strings being used. The moral of the song is about how important friendship is as Plant sings stories of a woman he loved and how friends can help you find your true self.
Celebration Day is more funk rock than psychedelic rock. The song starts with a fantastic guitar riff over a synthesizer that only Jimmy Page could do. The lyrics are actually about getting away from a troubled society. Zeppelin was paying attention to what was going on around the world and wrote a song about it. It tells the story of a minority woman running away from the awful place she lives in with quotes such like “You hear her cries of mercy”, “There is a train that leaves the station; Heading for your destination” and “We gonna sing and dance in celebration”. This song really shows how many instruments Zeppelin can really get busy with. Since I’ve Been Loving You is a trip back to their love of Blues rock. Plant sings about loving a woman so much it makes him crazy but all of the band members perform well but the real MVP of the song is who? Jimmy Page. Jimmy plays probably one of the best guitar solos of all time and it’s interesting cause he owns at least 5 of them on the list.
Out on the Tiles is the 5th song on the album and it was actually written by drummer John Bonham. It’s funny because they said he would refer to drinking at bars as going “out on the tiles” instead of “out on the town”. It’s a heavy song with bassist John Paul Jones and Jimmy Page going back and forth but John Bonham drum patterns are fabulous. Gallows Pole is originally a poem written by Francis James Child called “The Maid Freed From The Gallows” then a folk singer in the 1930s called Leadbelly made it into a song called “The Gallis Pole” which inspired Zeppelin to up the antics on it. The song dramatically keeps building up as Page goes from an acoustic guitar then back to electric and then there’s a banjo and John Paul Jones playing mandolin. Shit is insane but amazing.
Tangerine is a beautiful folk song with a country music story ballad, the Led Zeppelin way of course. Jimmy plays two guitar parts on this song, one with 6 strings and the other a 12 strings acoustic. Robert’s vocals pair so well with the instrumentation as he sings about lost love and the woman who used to be his queen. That’s The Way is the 8th song the LP and might be the most moving song of them all on the album. Robert Plant and Jimmy Page are like PB&J when an acoustic guitar is involved and they are singing about love. The song is the longest song on the album as Plant sings about not being able to be with them anymore. Plant sees this person throughout the week and realizes they are hurting just as much as he is because they were bestfriends. There are tons of heavy lyrics throughout like “And when I’m out I see you walking/ Why don’t your eyes see me?” and “Could it be you’ve found another game to play?” but the real emotional lyric is when he sees his old friend standing by the river and he sings “And weren’t those tears that filled your eyes?” with “And all the fish that lay in dirty water dying/ Had they got you hypnotized?”. Chills.
Bron-Y-Aur Stomp is a song written by Page and Plant and it’s actually about the relationship Plant had with his dog, Strider. Another folk tale, Plant sings about hanging out with his dog by the tree, going down the country lanes, and calling out his name. It’s probably the only real song about a dog since The Beatles and we haven’t heard nothing since like Clairo’s new album (which is pretty good). Hats Off to (Roy Harper) is the 10th and final song on the album. The title of the song is a tribute to legendary American blues singer Roy Harper. Jimmy Page said they recorded a lot of traditional blues songs that didn’t make the album obviously but they wanted to use this one since they were all heavy into Roy Harper at the time. The vocals on this song are out of this world because it’s almost like Robert Plant is singing into a dying, fading microphone. Not bad, but different.
Led Zeppelin III reached Number 1 in the UK it’s first week and remained on the charts for over 40 weeks. It debuted at Number 3 in the US and then reached 1 the following week. Critics were somewhat divided during the album’s release. Some were not a fan of them steering away from their hard rock grounds for this new experimental folk sound while most were a fan of them expanding who they are and taking new chances. Either way, they became the biggest and best band in the world.
Led Zeppelin reached new heights once LZ3 was released. The Beatles were breaking up and The Rolling Stones weren’t even really in the conversation. They changed their wardrobe and tested new sounds without having to look back. Jimmy Page is arguably the greatest guitarist of all time, Robert Plant IS the greatest rock singer of all time, and John Paul and John are well respected in their fields as well. Led Zeppelin III was able to take folk acoustic ballads and build it into depth with strings and electric guitars. Top of their game. It’s not significantly their best album in the catalog but it is them at their most creative. The best band of the 1970s, one of the most innovative and influential artists of all time, with a record that casually showed a new era in rock music.
