Led Zeppelin's Led Zeppelin IV

Praise for the series:

Passionate, obsessive, and smart—
Nylon

Religious tracts for the rock’n’roll faithful—
Boldtype

Each volume has a distinct, almost militantly personal take on a beloved long-player … the books that have resulted are like the albums themselves—filled with moments of shimmering beauty, forgivable flaws, and stubborn eccentricity—
Tracks Magazine

At their best, these books make rich, thought-provoking arguments for the song collections at hand—
The Philadelphia Inquirer

Reading about rock isn’t quite the same as listening to it, but this series comes pretty damn close—
Neon NYC

The sort of great idea you can’t believe hasn’t been done before—
Boston Phoenix

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www.continuumbooks.com

Erik Davis

2007

The Continuum International Publishing Group Inc

80 Maiden Lane, New York, NY 10038

The Continuum International Publishing Group Ltd

The Tower Building, 11 York Road, London SE1 7NX

www.continuumbooks.com

Copyright © 2005 by Erik Davis

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the written permission of the publishers.

Printed in the United States of America

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Davis, Erik.

[Led Zeppelin IV] / Erik Davis.

p. cm. — (33 1/3)

Includes bibliographical references.

eISBN 978-1-4411-1422-8

1. Led Zeppelin (Musical group)
2. Led Zeppelin (Musical group). Led Zeppelin IV.
I. Title: Led Zeppelin [four symbols].
II. Title: Led Zeppelin four. III. Title: Led Zeppelin 4.
IV. Led Zeppelin (Musical group). Led Zeppelin IV.
V. Title. VI. Series.

ML421.L4D38 2005

782.42166′092′2—dc22

2005001104

Introduction:
OVER THE HILLS AND FAR AWAY

I:
PHYSICAL GRAFFITI

II:
LET THE MUSIC BE YOUR MASTER

III:
GOTTA ROLL

IV:
IN THE MIDDLE OF THE AIR

V:
WANDERING AND WONDERING

VI:
WHEN MOUNTAINS CRUMBLE TO THE SEA

VII:
CODA: IN THE EVENING

NOTES

Also available in this series:

Dusty in Memphis
by Warren Zanes

Forever Changes
by Andrew Hultkrans

Harvest
by Sam Inglis

The Kinks Are The Village Green Preservation Society
by Andy Miller

Meat Is Murder
by Joe Pernice

The Piper at the Gates of Dawn
by John Cavanagh

Abba Gold
by Elisabeth Vincentelli

Electric Ladyland
by John Perry

Unknown Pleasures
by Chris Ott

Sign ‘O’ the Times
by Michaelangelo Matos

The Velvet Underground and Nico
by Joe Harvard

Let It Be
by Steve Matteo

Live at the Apollo
by Douglas Wolk

Aqualung
by Allan Moore

OK Computer
by Dai Griffiths

Let It Be
by Colin Meloy

Led Zeppelin IV
by Erik Davis

Armed Forces
by Franklin Bruno

Exile on Main Street
by Bill Janovitz

Grace
by Daphne Brooks

Murmur
by J. Niimi

Pet Sounds
by Jim Fusilli

Ramones
by Nicholas Rombes

Endtroducing…
by Eliot Wilder

Kick Out the Jams
by Don McLeese

Low
by Hugo Wilcken

I
n the Aeroplane Over the Sea
by Kim Cooper

Music from Big Pink
by John Niven

Paul’s Boutique
by Dan LeRoy

Doolittle
by Ben Sisario

There’s a Riot Goin’ On
by Miles Marshall Lewis

Stone Roses
by Alex Green

Bee Thousand
by Marc Woodworth

The Who Sell Out
by John Dougan

Highway 61 Revisited
by Mark Polizzotti

Loveless
by Mike McGonigal

The Notorious Byrd Brothers
by Ric Menck

Court and Spark
by Sean Nelson

69 Love Songs
by LD Beghtol

Songs in the Key of Life
by Zeth Lundy

Use Your Illusion I and II
by Eric Weisbard

Daydream Nation
by Matthew Stearns

Trout Mask Replica
by Kevin Courrier

Double Nickels on the Dime
by Michael T. Fournier

People’s Instinctive Travels and the Paths of Rhythm
by Shawn Taylor

Aja
by Don Breithaupt

Rid of Me
by Kate Schatz

Achtung Baby
by Stephen Catanzarite

Forthcoming in this series:
Pretty Hate Machine
by Daphne Carr
Let’s Talk About Love
by Carl Wilson
and many more …

Where should this music be? i’ th’ air or th’ earth?

—
The Tempest,
Act 1, Scene 2

Mystery is not about darkness. It’s about intrigue. There’s a fine line in between, of course. Not even a fine line … it’s a gossamer thread.

—Robert Plant

A few years ago, a British friend and I drove down to Cornwall to ring in the summer solstice at a small sylvan estate called Woodfield. Mark brought a raft of CDs—obscure garage, Japanese psychedelia, Finnish prog—but the rental car only had a tape deck. Driving along the M5 was boring, so when we hit a pit stop, I casually scanned the racks of overpriced cassettes. Nothing grabbed me until my eyes fell across an old codger lugging a load of wood along a country road—or rather the image of said codger, framed against a peeling wall. It was a copy of that literally nameless slab of luminous rune-rock we must stoop to dub
Led Zeppelin IV,
or
Four Symbols
, or
Zoso
. Though it was never my favorite Zep record—I alternate between
III
and
Physical Graffiti
—I
picked up the tape, figuring that ten quid wasn’t too terribly much for a nostalgic lark on a dull journey.

It was my first time in southwestern England, and Mark suggested that we get off the M5 and take a detour through Glastonbury, which lies in the shire, or whatever you call it, of Somerset. Glastonbury is Britain’s mystic Mecca, a densely layered faery cake of fantasy and lore that stretches back into the ages. And it is a weird place. Besides a ruined Gothic abbey and a reconstructed sacred well, the hamlet features a high hill known as the Tor: an odd natural feature, topped with a lonely tower, that looms over the surrounding landscape like some pagan barrow mound. Glastonbury was once surrounded by swamps, and ancient tales identified the place as the Isle of Avalon, the Celtic other-world where the wounded King Arthur was dragged to die. Other celebrity visitors are supposed to have included Joseph of Arimathea, said to have sailed from Jerusalem to Glastonbury with the Holy Grail in hand, there to found one of the first churches in Christendom. During the middle ages, Glastonbury’s monks made much of these tales, going so far as to dig up the bones of Arthur. Their marketing savvy made the abbey England’s holiest pilgrimage site until Henry VIII had the abbot drawn and quartered on the Tor. In the nineteenth century, the crumbling monastery and a ferrous spring nearby started attracting British occultists, and
today the Tor is routinely topped with New Agers, grotty hippies, and crop circle chasers measuring ley lines with curious electrical machines.