Friday, February 03, 2006

Its time to lay down

Since you asked:
For reasons that are not known to any sensible human being, Led Zeppelin is not available on iTunes. They whore out their songs to Cadillac, but they won’t put them on iTunes?

Anyway, I broke down and bought a bunch of Zeppelin CDs and they are so cool. Not just for the music, which really rocks, but because it makes me sixteen in the head again. Like I mentioned, “Black Dog” starts with a sound that is exactly like a pole vault pole hitting a synthetic track.

“Boing boing boing boing. “Hey, Hey Mamma said the way you move . . .”

Man oh man, I can almost taste Diane Haskin’s cherry lip gloss. From making out with her, not borrowing it.

But it also shows how deathly loyal I was to my bands back in the day. Led Zeppelin, like all bands, the Beatles, Stones and Eagles included, had songs that were not as good as the others. And some songs that, let’s face it, stunk.

For example, from their “Physical Graffiti” album, I used to love “Ten Years Gone.” Oh, I would listen to that and get all misty eyed and moony for some girl whom I was too nervous to talk to, like Denise Bernier. (Now that enough time has passed, I have decided to restructure my history and declare Denise as my former girlfriend of many many torrid months)

Granted “TYG” has a cool acoustic guitar juxtaposed to arena rock-out power chords, a formula, like “Stairway to Heaven” that is usually a sure winner.

But the lyrics? Oh my god, high school poetry class bad.

Blind stars of fortune, each have several rays
On the wings of maybe, down in birds of prey
Kind of makes me feel sometimes, didn't have to grow
But as the eagle leaves the nest, it's got so far to go

What the . . .? That is dreadful. And;

Did you ever need some body, and really need them bad?
Did you ever really love somebody, the best stuff you’ve ever had?

And the song changes to a different melody in the middle, with a guitar solo that Jimmy Page phoned in. And “Achilles Last Stand”? Even when I was 17 I didn’t like that one.

But, Robert Plant, who kindly schooled me about early sixties R&B for a half an hour at a vintage record store on West Third Street in Greenwich Village, in 1985, is and always will be, my boy.