The Definitive 1000 Songs Of All Time 1955 to 2005: Number 422

Number 422

Led Zeppelin

"Black Dog"

(1971)
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Genre: Rock

What the?

So, anyway, this battle with Warner Music Group and yanking every known Warner tune that's been put into vids like Aunt Betty's Xmas video of 1998 with some strange looking kids or some video with kittens playing with their tails in bathtubs who accidentally listen to Prince [don't ask] etc from the YouTube site. This last weekend gone, Warner must have pulled hundreds and hundreds of thousands videos, quote: "Since late 2008, WMG has continually pulled various other YouTube videos featuring music belonging to various bands and music labels, regardless of disclaimers. Many of these claims have included videos belonging to groups who are not signed with WMG." Really?

Well, I started to make a series of videos covering the songs here on this site, idea is not original, Keonepax has been doing it for a few years now and extremely successfully i might add, by covering the Number 1 Songs since 1955, that were from the official charts. Right, so i made 3 vids [Part 1, 2, 3 you get the drift], the first one went through without a hitch ......

The Definitive 1000 Songs of All Time 1955 to 2005 (50 Yrs of Rock n' Roll)Part 1

The 2nd one, well that got the ole "As a result, your video is blocked everywhere except in these locations" and, I am given a list of locations etc, with the assuring note that i could .... "If you want to make your video available globally you can use AudioSwap to replace the audio in your video with a track from our library of pre-licensed songs." YAWN. However, the 3rd one got "Not allowed! As some of the content is owned by WMG" And that was that. So, I did what any super slueth did, i went and published it on DailyMotion.com. And yes ! You guessed, it was rejected! Ah well, funny thing is WMG's wikipedia page has now be locked due to millions of people abusing them. Want this sorted out? Stop buying from Warner! Easy.

Quick, lets get back to the real music ..... Led Zeppelin.

Hey hey mama [yeah u know the one]

Encompassing heavy metal, folk, pure rock & roll, and blues, Led Zeppelin's untitled fourth album is a monolithic record, defining not only Led Zeppelin but the sound and style of '70s hard rock. Expanding on the breakthroughs of III, Zeppelin fuse their majestic hard rock with a mystical, rural English folk that gives the record an epic scope. Even at its most basic -- the muscular, traditionalist "Rock and Roll" -- the album has a grand sense of drama, which is only deepened by Robert Plant's burgeoning obsession with mythology, religion, and the occult.

Pick a card ... oh wait

Plant's mysticism comes to a head on the eerie folk ballad "The Battle of Evermore," a mandolin-driven song with haunting vocals from Sandy Denny, and on the epic "Stairway to Heaven." Of all of Zeppelin's songs, "Stairway to Heaven" is the most famous, and not unjustly. Building from a simple fingerpicked acoustic guitar to a storming torrent of guitar riffs and solos, it encapsulates the entire album in one song. Which, of course, isn't discounting the rest of the album. "Going to California" is the group's best folk song, and the rockers are endlessly inventive, whether it's the complex, multi-layered "Black Dog," the pounding hippie satire "Misty Mountain Hop," or the funky riffs of "Four Sticks." But the closer, "When the Levee Breaks," is the one song truly equal to "Stairway," helping give IV the feeling of an epic. An apocalyptic slice of urban blues, "When the Levee Breaks" is as forceful and frightening as Zeppelin ever got, and its seismic rhythms and layered dynamics illustrate why none of their imitators could ever equal them. ~ [Stephen Thomas Erlewine, All Music Guide]

For more Led Zeppelin see Number 577 & #957
For Robert Plant see Number 845
For Prince see Number 812 & MM Vol 1 #136

What with the cover of Led Zep 4? No-one ever talks about it

The 19th century rustic oil painting on the front of the album, was purchased from an antique shop in Reading, Berkshire by Robert Plant and juxtaposed and affixed to the internal, papered wall of the partly demolished suburban house for the photograph to be taken. The 20th century urban tower block on the back of the full gatefold album cover is Butterfield Court in Dudley, England. Page has explained that the cover of the fourth album was intended to bring out a city/country dichotomy that had initially surfaced on Led Zeppelin III: "It represented the change in the balance which was going on. There was the old countryman and the blocks of flats being knocked down. It was just a way of saying that we should look after the earth, not rape and pillage it." The inside illustration was "The Hermit", credited to Barrington Colby MOM, influenced by the design of the card of the same name in the Rider-Waite tarot deck. This character was later portrayed by Page himself in Led Zeppelin's concert film, The Song Remains the Same (1976). If the inside cover of the album is held vertically against a mirror, a man's face can be seen hidden in the rocks below the hermit. ~ [Source: Wikipedia]

Black Dog?

Own this? you lucky pup

Led Zeppelin bass player John Paul Jones, who is credited with writing the main riff, wanted to write a song that people could not "groove" or dance to. In the December 2007 issue of Mojo magazine, Jones credited Howlin' Wolf with the inspiration for the beat: “The riff to 'Black Dog' started the same way [as 'Trampled Under Foot'], a jam based on something I'd heard on a new release by Howlin' Wolf, a blues lick that went round and round and didn't end when you thought it was going to. My dad had taught me this very easy notation system using note values and numbers, so I wrote it on a bit of paper on the train coming back from rehearsal in Jimmy's house in Pangbourne.”
In another interview, Jones explained the difficulties experienced by the band in writing the song: “I wanted to try an electric blues with a rolling bass part. But it couldn't be too simple. I wanted it to turn back on itself. I showed it to the guys, and we fell into it. We struggled with the turn-around, until [John] Bonham figured out that you just four-time as if there's no turn-around. That was the secret.”
Back when rock was shit hot

The song's title is a reference to a nameless black Labrador retriever that wandered around the Headley Grange studios during recording.The dog has nothing to do with the song lyrics, which are about desperate desire for a woman's love and the happiness resulting thereby. Regarding the lyrics to the song, Plant later said, "Not all my stuff is meant to be scrutinized. Things like 'Black Dog' are blatant, let's-do-it-in-the-bath type things, but they make their point just the same." Plant's vocals were recorded in 2 takes.
The start and stop a cappella verses were inspired by Fleetwood Mac's 1969 song "Oh Well." (Led Zeppelin guitarist Jimmy Page and The Black Crowes would later perform "Oh Well" on their 1999 tour and included it on the album Live at the Greek.)
Despite the seeming simplicity of the drum pattern, the song features a complex, shifting time signature that the band has sometimes claimed was intended to thwart cover bandsfrom playing the song. Jones originally wanted the song recorded in 3/16 time but realised it was too complex to reproduce live. In live performances, Bonham eliminated the 5/4 variation so that Plant could perform his a cappella vocal interludes and then have the instruments return to together synchronised. If the volume is turned up loud enough, Bonham can be heard tapping his sticks together before each riff. ~ [Source: Wikipedia] read more
For Fleetwood Mac see Number 514, #547 & #591
For Black Crowes visit MM Vol 1 #001

What does Rolling Stone think about Led Zep?
It might seem a bit incongruous to say that Led Zeppelin–a band never particularly known for its tendency to understate matters–has produced an album which is remarkable for its low-keyed and tasteful subtlety, but that's just the case here. The march of the dinosaurs that broke the ground for their first epic release has apparently vanished, taking along with it the splattering electronics of their second effort and the leaden acoustic moves that seemed to weigh down their third. What's been saved is the pumping adrenaline drive that held the key to such classics as "Communication Breakdown" and "Whole Lotta Love," the incredibly sharp and precise vocal dynamism of R obert Plant, and some of the tightest arranging and producing Jimmy Page has yet seen his way toward doing. If this thing with the semi-metaphysical title isn't quite their best to date, since the very chances that the others took meant they would visit some outrageous highs as well as some overbearing lows, it certainly comes off as their most consistently good. ~ read more [Source: Rolling Stone]
Rolling Stone magazine deemed their '422nd Song of all Time' was "Lola" by the Kinks. The Kinks have not appeared in The Definitive 1000
Other songs with reference to Led Zeppelin #429, #433, #435, #436, #444, #464, #484, #487, #495, #505, #516, #528, #536, #539, #540, #547, #552, #567, #587, #590, #597, #616, #626, #636, #640, #651, #659, #663, #669, #686, #712, #747, #751, #755, #767, #772, #802, #805, #906, #909, #935, #947, #975

Rolling Stone Top 500 Songs ranked this song at Number 294 and the Album ranked at Number 66

This song has a Definitive 1000 rating of 77.9 out of 108

LED ZEPPELIN - Black Dog
Uploaded by danadi33