Houses Of The Holy: Behind Led Zeppelins Roof-Raising Classic Album

Table Of Content

• Composition and recording
• Steve Hanley’s 5 Favourite Albums by Artists Who Supported The Fall…
• Gilles Peterson’s Top Five Sun Ra Albums Of All Time
• What was the inspiration behind “Houses of the Holy”?
• The Story of Led Zeppelin’s Most Diverse LP, ‘Houses of the Holy’
• Genius is the world’s biggest collection of song lyrics and musical knowledge
• The Rain Song

From thereon in, however, Led Zeppelin turned The Rain Song into a courtly, contemplative ballad with an enigmatic quality that stands apart among the best Led Zeppelin songs. Drawing upon the changing of the seasons and the elusive qualities of love, Plant’s poetic lyric (“This is the mystery of the quotient/Upon us all, a little rain must fall”) proved the ideal foil for the band’s sweeping performance, enhanced to near-perfection by Jones’ Mellotron-derived strings. To assist them in their quest, Page and co rehired Eddie Kramer, the highly respected studio engineer renowned for his work with Jimi Hendrix and also on Led Zeppelin II.

Composition and recording

No Quarter swept Houses Of The Holy out of the daylight and into the Arctic gloom. “I knew instantly [No Quarter] was a very durable piece and something we could take on the road and expand,” Jones told Zeppelin historian Dave Lewis. Houses Of The Holy, one of LZ’s most epic albums, is a showcase of folk and softcore classic metal mastery. The album, although met with mixed reviews, was confirmed triple platinum in 1989. As Procol Harum's lyricist, Keith wrote the words to "A Whiter Shade Of Pale." We delve into that song and find out how you can form a band when you don't sing or play an instrument.

Steve Hanley’s 5 Favourite Albums by Artists Who Supported The Fall…

Houses Of The Holy has the distinction of being one of only two Zeppelin albums (the other is 1979’s In Through The Out Door) on which Plant doesn’t slip into caveman mode even once and sound like’s he’s coming to drag your daughter/mother/grandma back to his lair. The Song Remains The Same also had a cinematic, larger-than-life feel that Zeppelin would go back to on Achilles’ Last Stand, the dominant track on 1976’s Presence. But while the latter track sounded like the end of the world, The Song Remains The Same sounded like a band having the time of their lives. While progressive and glam rock were thriving in the outside world, Zeppelin created music in a bubble. Nothing ever seemed to make its way in, apart from the blues, soul and 50s jukebox records they’d grown up with. Page had come to the sessions loaded with song ideas worked up beforehand at his home studio.

Gilles Peterson’s Top Five Sun Ra Albums Of All Time

They’d scoop ’em up after the encore and whisk them away to the airport while the crowd were still at the stadium cheering for more.” Never the most enthusiastic flyers, Zeppelin found their first craft, a Falcon 20 business jet, cramped and uncomfortable. When a bad bout of turbulence threatened to knock the plane out of the sky following the penultimate show of the tour’s first leg, they decided to jettison the Falcon for good. Peter Grant tasked tour manager Richard Cole with finding a new plane, demanding he spare no expense for opulence and safety – in that order. A North American tour, the band's first since 1977, was scheduled to commence on 17 October 1980. On 24 September, Bonham was picked up by Led Zeppelin assistant Rex King to attend rehearsals at Bray Studios.[89] During the journey, Bonham asked to stop for breakfast, where he downed four quadruple vodkas (from 16 to 24 US fl oz (470 to 710 ml)), with a ham roll.

Even though it was released commercially as the B-side of "Over the Hills and Far Away," "Dancing Days" was the first Houses of the Holy song made for radio play, with promotional discs distributed to radio stations. BBC Radio One had the honor of premiering it on March 24, 1973, during its midday program, just four days before Houses of the Holy came out. Bobby Brown sampled Page's riff on his hit 1992 single "Humpin' Around" during some different kinds of dancing days. Page keeps the acoustic going throughout the track, even when it blasts off into full-throttle electric nirvana after the first verse. The song was known as "Many, Many Times" for a while, and Plant blended inspirations from J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit and from the nomadic hippie lifestyles he saw taking place in the U.S. during Zeppelin's early tours there ("Many times I've gazed along the open road").

What was the inspiration behind “Houses of the Holy”?

Page composed most of Led Zeppelin's music, particularly early in their career, while Plant wrote most of the lyrics. Jones's keyboard-based compositions later became central to their music, which featured increasing experimentation. The latter half of their career saw a series of record-breaking tours that earned the group a reputation for excess and debauchery. Although they remained commercially and critically successful, their touring and output, which included Presence (1976) and In Through the Out Door (1979), grew limited, and the group disbanded following Bonham's death in 1980, feeling that they would not be "Led Zeppelin" without him. Since then, the surviving former members have sporadically collaborated and participated in one-off concerts.

The Story of Led Zeppelin’s Most Diverse LP, ‘Houses of the Holy’

One interpretation of the meaning behind “Houses of the Holy” suggests that the song explores the idea of transcendence and the search for higher truths. The lyrics paint vivid imagery, evoking a sense of otherworldliness and awe. The “houses” referred to in the song are often seen as symbolic manifestations of various spiritual realms or dimensions.

Showcasing one of Houses Of The Holy’s most assured performances, Dancing Days reputedly pleased the band so much that studio engineer Eddie Kramer recalled them dancing around the garden at Stargroves while they listened to a playback of the final mix. Despite experiencing stratospheric levels of stardom, Led Zeppelin were still hungry to create new music, so while they embarked on a lengthy world tour following the release of “Led Zeppelin IV”, they began informal rehearsals shortly after returning to the UK in 1972. Initial get-togethers took place in Puddletown, in Dorset, before the band discovered a suitable out-of-studio location for more intensive work. This residential approach had worked wonders when they decamped to Hampshire’s Headley Grange to lay down much of “Led Zeppelin IV”, but this time Zeppelin settled on Stargroves, a country mansion in Hampshire owned by Mick Jagger.

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The Rain Song

Rather like that record’s Gallows Pole, Over The Hills And Far Away was instilled with a quiet-loud dynamic, albeit one stemming from one of Page’s more languid acoustic guitar figures. Plant’s vivid lyrics speak of a rambling minstrel with a wandering eye (“Many times I’ve loved and many times been bitten/Many times I’ve gazed along the open road”) while the band get the balance bang on, doling out light and shade in equal measure. After the release of their illustrious untitled fourth album (usually referred to as “Led Zeppelin IV”), Led Zeppelin became bona fide superstars. As they were now ‘The Biggest Band in the World’, the band members were now fairly confident in their musical abilities, and with this confidence came the freedom to pursue their own musical interests. Their first two albums were heavy-duty rock n’ roll fuelled by turbo-charged blues but as the band matured, so did their music.

He said there was something sinister about the image, though his sister disagreed. The programme ended with Gates returning to Giant's Causeway and listening to the album on a portable player, after which he said that a great weight had been lifted from him.[23] Samantha also appeared on the back cover of the band's 1976 album Presence. The song simply roars out of the traps, with Page’s power chords urged on by John Bonham and John Paul Jones’ surging rhythm section, and it makes for one of rock’s most explosive curtain raisers.

Led Zeppelin have been credited as significantly impacting the nature of the music industry, particularly in the development of album-oriented rock (AOR) and stadium rock. Their 1971 album (known as “Led Zeppelin IV”) was a behemoth slab of vinyl, taking the band to new dizzying heights with its commercial success and becoming one of the best-selling albums of all time. Zepp had also become the world’s biggest live act, outselling The Rolling Stones who were on their “Exile on Main Street” tour and Zepp would soon break The Beatles’ attendance records, flying to and from shows on their own private jet, The Starship.

Led Zeppelin’s message in “Houses of the Holy” is open to interpretation. However, one can discern a recurring theme of self-discovery, spiritual growth, and the search for universal truths. The band invites listeners to embark on a personal journey of introspection and encourages them to explore the deeper realms of existence. Led Zeppelin released their fifth and most wide-ranging album, Houses of the Holy, on March 28, 1973. Led Zeppelin kicked off their fifth album with a track called "The Song Remains the Same." But that was a lie. By the time Houses Of The Holy appeared in March 1973, Zeppelin were getting the begrudging respect that had been denied them for so long.

The record came out 16 months after their landmark (and technically untitled) Led Zeppelin IV. They responded by delivering some of their most complex, nuanced work ever, and by exploring new genres on tracks such as the reggae-influenced "D'yer Mak'er" and the funky James Brown-inspired "The Crunge." Critics, as usual, drew their swords when the album -- whose release was delayed to get the memorable, and Grammy Award-nominated, Hipgnosis cover just right -- came out. Rolling Stone predictably dubbed the outing a "limp blimp" and "one of the dullest and most confusing albums." It was "a clunker," "inconsistent" and "strangely sluggish" to other outlets declaring Houses a holy mess. The fans weren't entirely sure what to make of it either but still got behind the set; it was Zeppelin's third No. 1 album in the U.S. (eventually certified Diamond for more than 10 million copies sold) and fourth consecutive chart-topper in the U.K. "D'yer Mak'er" even made it to No. 20 on the Billboard Hot 100, only the third Top 20 hit for the notoriously singles-averse band.

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Although they’d emerged in 1968, Zeppelin were always a band for the 70s. There, he’d spotted a gap in the market for a band that could build on the power and dynamism of Jimi Hendrix and Cream. In March 1973, adverts started appearing in the music press for Led Zeppelin’s new album, Houses Of The Holy. In order to create the layered guitar introduction and fade-out, Page used a Delta T digital delay unit.[2] The squeak of John Bonham's drum pedal can be heard throughout the song. On its 45th anniversary, here are 10 things you might not know about Led Zeppelin’s fifth album.