A 12-Bar Christmas Carol, Sung by a Chorus of Vikings: An Assessment of Led Zeppelin

By Josh Corman

The Ghost of Zeppelin Past

Robert Plant (left) wore those jeans from 1968-1971,
when he finally had to be cut out of them.

For probably four solid months after I got my driver's license, my in-car listening pattern went something like: I, II, III, IV, Houses of The Holy, Physical Graffiti; repeat, with little variation. If you're wondering why Presence, In Through the Out Door, or Coda didn't join the rotation, it's because I'd heard that those three albums represented a pretty sharp decline in quality, and since I could not at that time imagine a reality in which everything the Great Zep touched did not turn instantly and irrevocably into gold, I avoided them, just in case it was true. Instead, I added the live compilation BBC Sessions into the mix and was waiting in line at Wal-Mart when How the West Was Won, their remastered three-disc live album culled mostly from their swaggering prime, went on sale. Led Zeppelin stormed the castle, and they almost took the keep. Many were the moments (most of them probably right in the middle of "When the Levee Breaks") when I sat in contemplation, wondering if Zeppelin had not indeed taken over the title of my favorite band of all time.

I stopped wondering after a while. The Fab Four built an impenetrable fortress atop my musical mountain, and Zep was content to set up residence on a minor outcrop just below the summit, where they have stayed ever since.

I know I'm throwing a lot of metaphors at you, but this is important.

A few months ago, Emily, Jonny, and I were having a conversation about possible VI pieces, and Emily intimated that she had an idea that had been brewing for quite some time, but that she wanted to run it by me first. Led Zeppelin had started to annoy her, she said. She probably heard the breath catch in my throat and imagined me going into cardiac arrest, because she took speedy pains to qualify her position. Mostly, she chalked it up to living in Los Angeles and being pummeled with Led Zeppelin by just about every radio station upon which she stumbled. "Stairway to Heaven," "Kashmir," and "Whole Lotta Love," over and over and over. She said she still "liked" them (I could hear the air-quotes in her voice) in some general sense, or maybe it was that she "understood" why some people - some people, as though she'd forgotten who she was talking to - really like them, but they just weren't for her anymore, except in small doses.

So she wanted to write a piece about how Led Zeppelin had reached critical mass in her life and how this saturation had driven her to confer upon the mighty Zep that most damning of honorifics: overrated.

Gasp. Shudder. The horror.

I gave Emily's idea an immediate thumbs up. I wanted a crack at writing the response, after all. Well, like I said, that was months ago. Time has run out, and I'm launching a preemptive strike, as it were (from what I understand, those always end well).

The Ghost of Zeppelin Present


This will not, despite all appearances, morph into a diatribe on why Led Zeppelin is incredible and Emily (or anyone else) is insane for believing otherwise. The truth is that Emily's proposed piece actually got me thinking. As I considered all that I might say in response to her claims of Zeppelin's limitations, I actually saw more legitimacy in them than I would have believed.

So I went back to the source. I threw on III (For those not prone to "getting the Led out," Zeppelin's first four albums were designated simply by Roman numerals) and tried to listen through the ears of someone who didn't once adore this music so intensely that it bordered on solipsism. This is an intensely difficult endeavor, as you might imagine. Thankfully for the sake of the experiment, the first track on III is "Immigrant Song," which, if I'm guessing, is probably in the top six Led Zeppelin tunes currently played on the radio. (The others are probably, in some order, "Stairway," "Kashmir," "Whole Lotta Love," "Heartbreaker," and either "Black Dog" or "Rock and Roll.") I've never thought of this song as one of Zep's best efforts, but then, I wouldn't consider any of the songs I've just listed among my personal Top Ten. I mean, they all have a seat at the bargaining table (except maybe "Kashmir," which has always seemed lacking), but after the initial shine wore off, they all settled far below my personal view of the band's apex.

I would wager that for a great many people—a majority of them like Emily, who has heard other Led Zeppelin, but for whom the radio hits have come to represent most of what the band is—these few songs have presented Zeppelin as a horribly repetitive group with little to recommend it beyond sheer bombast.

Now, none of this is to say Oh, if only the sad masses got to know the brilliance of Led Zeppelin's deep cuts, they'd be instant converts. That is condescending and doesn't really do much general Zeppelin discourse. I'm simply pointing out that, like a lot of bands, Zeppelin's most radio friendly songs don't really do the band justice. On III alone, after "Immigrant Song," we're treated to an acoustic folk-boogie ("Friends"), a slow-burning blues howler ("Since I've Been Loving You"), a sing-along pop gem ("Tangerine"), and a bluegrass-infused ramble ("Bron-Y-Aur Stomp"), mixed in among the straight-ahead rockers (and even then, "Celebration Day" and "Out on the Tiles" reflect the group's versatility and flair better than "Immigrant Song"). The point is, anybody who is repeatedly and almost exclusively bludgeoned with only the brawny heavyweights in Zeppelin's catalogue is bound to find them lacking.

The whole 'seeing the band through different eyes' thing didn't do much to change my perception of Led Zeppelin, but I can openly admit now what I may not have been able to before. Phil Tallon wrote a few weeks ago about Parks and Recreation, and how Amy Poehler's character on that show loves her hometown both in spite of and, in some cases, because of its flaws. That's how I feel about Led Zeppelin. I know that seven-minute drum solos on studio recordings are needlessly indulgent, but I love "Moby Dick" anyway. I know that it's hard to take a band seriously when no fewer than three of their songs feature overt references to The Lord of the Rings (even if you love The Lord of the Rings), but I don't care. Led Zeppelin hit me at a time in my life and in such a way that I don't know that anything could completely pry them out now. They're excessive and silly and self-serious and obnoxious, but I don't care.

The Ghost of Zeppelin Future


It may sound from all this like I'm still that sixteen-year-old kid with a stack of Zeppelin CDs in my passengers seat, all those albums still cycling through my stereo. But the truth is that until today, I hadn't listened to a whole Led Zeppelin album in a long time, maybe as long as a year. Writing this brought me back to them, and before I popped III into the CD player, I was a little worried that the magic would be gone. But I feel that way all the time about a bunch of my favorite things. I've often worried that I don't really like The Beatles as much as I claim, that I've just become complacent, that I've kept them atop my personal musical totem pole out of habit as much as for any other reason. I've done the same thing with the Star Wars films and The Lord of the Rings novels.

I become legitimately concerned about these things. And then the first chord hits, or I watch that yellow text crawling across space, or I read the first few lines, and I ready myself for a long-awaited party.

By Josh Corman

Follow me on Twitter @JoshACorman