My #1 All-Time Favorite Album: Led Zeppelin IV

LED ZEPPELIN IV, my #1 all-time favorite album, came out in 1971 although I didn't hear all eight of its tracks for another nineteen years until the British hard rock band produced its first box set and my local rock station, WRUF-FM "Rock 104", played it in its entirety to my amazement.  What a group, and what an album, with guitarist wizard Jimmy Page doing his riffs and studio production, Robert Plant's soulful singing (and harmonica), John Paul Jones on bass guitar and keyboards and the late John Bonham pounding out the drums.  The album is technically untitled, but everyone pretty much refers to it as "Led Zeppelin Four".   My initial exposure to it was during my teens with the playing of the opening track Black Dog and then Stairway to Heaven on the radio...the former I never did care for while I became obsessed with the latter in the fall of 1973 as a strong consensus of its greatness had spread throughout the rock listening community.  During this time and subsequent years, I would also hear songs like Rock and Roll, Misty Mountain Hop, Going to California and When the Levee Breaks on FM album rock radio without taking much notice of them.  But in late 1990 I was ready for their music and the impact of that box set, along with the advent of stations nightly playing Led Zeppelin music at set times, converted me into a die-hard fan, ten years after they broke up following Bonham's death.  Although Stairway to Heaven was on Side One, it was the album's second side with four striking tracks that has elevated Led Zeppelin IV to be my favorite one for all-time.  Below I have its tracks listed by order of my liking, with a little commentary thrown in...

1 WHEN THE LEVEE BREAKS---In their early years the band had a nasty habit of lifting old blues songs without crediting the original composer...they rectified it later, including this rock arrangement of a 1929 blues piece by Memphis Minnie and Kansas Joe McCoy.  This is a relentless song about suffering through misfortune as Plant alternately wails and plays perhaps the most compelling harmonica piece I've heard. From 1991 until just recently I regarded it as my all-time favorite song and still rank it very high.  The opening drums/guitar/harmonica segment is matchless...

2 MISTY MOUNTAIN HOP---Making a passing reference to Tolkien's Lord of the Rings, the lyrics are more a contemporary social commentary and a warning that "you better open your eyes".  Never heard a beat and lyrical buildup as in this ultimately sinister but beautiful Side Two opening track...

3 STAIRWAY TO HEAVEN---The first Zeppelin song I ever took to, I first got to like it a lot while lying in a hospital bed, recovering from surgery and listening to rock radio in October 1973.  The way the song transforms from a slow flute/acoustical piece gradually into a rousing hard rock guitar jam at the end has always impressed me...brilliant...

4 GOING TO CALIFORNIA---A mellow (for the most part) Robert Plant sings of goin' to California with an aching in his heart and looking for a woman who has never, ever been born.  Speaks of sometimes irrational, idealized sentiments that can cloud our own judgments...can I get an amen from anyone on that?  I loved the acoustical guitar on it and wonder how it would stand up instead as a piano piece...

5 FOUR STICKS---Some bands have specific songs in their catalog they avoid performing in live concerts because they are difficult to play... the Beatles' And Your Bird Can Sing, Rush's YYZ...and this one from Led Zeppelin: John Bonham thought Four Sticks was exceptionally hard on the drums.  It's kind of like When the Levee Breaks regarding the sense of deeply felt lamentation and an overriding mystical sense, and, yes, I'm a sucker for all that... 

6 THE BATTLE OF EVERMORE---An excursion into fantasy land as Plant sings of dire events unfolding in Tolkien's  Lord of the Rings setting.  He sings a pretty passionate duet here with Sandy Denny.  John Paul Jones dominates the song's instrumentation with the mandolin...

7 ROCK AND ROLL---Maybe the best anthem extolling rock and roll: exuberant, energizing, and happy.  Dang it, it's hard to hear it without just getting up and dancing around (while playing air guitar)...

8 BLACK DOG---Written literally about a black dog that had wondered into the recording studio one day, this is an exercise in jamming with the band members going off in their own jazzy/rock directions with their instruments and, in Plant's case, voice.  Never did care for it, though, although I can see how others would. Just seemed like they were showboating maybe a little too much here...

So that's it for my all-time favorite albums...guess I'll be cooking up some new feature for future weeks...