Saturday, September 22, 2007

More than "Ten Years Gone"

I had a rather uncomfortable relationship with LED ZEPPELIN when I was a kid.
I owned "Presence" on eight-track and I really liked that album. However, I generally avoided songs such as "Stairway to Heaven" and "Rock and Roll," simply because they were played almost constantly on rock radio at the time.
Then punk came along and I devoted most of my listening to post-punk and the emerging new wave sound.
I'm older now, and in the intervening years I have immersed myself in music I missed the first time around: I adore classic R & B, jazz and blues.
Now, I also find myself more attuned to the overall greatness of Led Zeppelin, I think because they also adored classic R & B, jazz and blues, and it showed in everything they recorded.
This morning I listened to "Physical Graffiti" and decided that the three-song progression from "Houses of the Holy" to "Trampled Underfoot" to "Kashmir" is one of my favorite three-song combinations on any record I own.
I also realized how much I love the song "Ten Years Gone."
It still irks me that Led Zeppelin seemed to take songwriting credits when they really should have given proper due to the originals. I mean, come on, can't you give BLIND WILLIE JOHNSON his due for "In My Time of Dying?"
Still, that quibble aside, I find myself much more a fan of the band than all those years ago.

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