Led Zeppelin Houses of the Holy Lyrics

Table Of Content

• Classic Rock Newsletter
• Episode 10 Behind The Counter 2024: Level Crossing Records, Mortlake
• Their Song Spawned an Internet Mystery. Now They’re Ready to Tell Their Story
• Frequently Asked Questions about “Houses of the Holy” by Led Zeppelin
• What message is Led Zeppelin trying to convey through this song?

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.

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The Song Remains The Same started as an instrumental fanfare for the album’s second track, The Rain Song. Meanwhile, Page bagged Jagger’s bedroom, one of the few furnished rooms in the house, and Bonham’s kit was set up in a large, conservatory-style space downstairs. When the group wandered outside, Kramer recorded Plant singing and Page strumming an acoustic guitar in the sunshine. Taken as a whole, it bottles Zeppelin’s gleeful energy and anything-goes experimentalism just at that point before they became the biggest rock group on the planet.

Episode 10 Behind The Counter 2024: Level Crossing Records, Mortlake

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.

Led Zeppelin's 'Houses Of The Holy' Turns 50!!! - Vermilion County First

Led Zeppelin's 'Houses Of The Holy' Turns 50!!!.

Posted: Mon, 27 Mar 2023 07:00:00 GMT [source]

Their Song Spawned an Internet Mystery. Now They’re Ready to Tell Their Story

“Houses of the Holy” was their chance to experiment and to have a little fun. The photo shoot featured two naked child models, Stefan and Samantha Gates. Shooting was done first thing in the morning and at sunset in order to capture the light at dawn and dusk, but the desired effect was never achieved due to constant rain and clouds. The photos of the two children were taken in black and white and were multi-printed to create the effect of 11 individuals that can be seen on the album cover. The results were unsatisfactory, but some accidental tinting effects in post-production created a suitable cover. The inner gatefold photograph was taken at Dunluce Castle nearby the Causeway.[22] In February 2010, Stefan Gates was featured on a BBC Radio 4 documentary about the cover.

Led Zeppelin’s musical legacy, embodied in songs like “Houses of the Holy,” continues to shape the landscape of modern music. The fourth album was an unqualified triumph if only for "Stairway to Heaven" but there was much more to it than that. The band Jimmy Page started in 1968 was filling arenas and on its way to stadiums, and you couldn't spend more than an hour listening to an FM rock station without hearing a Zeppelin song. However, despite the song’s burly swagger, The Ocean’s lyrics had a twist. They weren’t about sex or hobbits, but partly inspired by Plant’s three-year-old daughter, Carmen.

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Issued in an eerie, Grammy-nominated sleeve – designed by Hipgnosis’ Aubrey Powell, and standing as one of the most memorable Led Zeppelin album covers – Houses Of The Holy was first released on 28 March 1973. Its eclectic mix of material initially divided the critics, though positive retrospectives (among them Pitchfork’s declaration that “Houses Of The Holy might be Zeppelin’s most impressive album on a purely sonic level”) have significantly restored its reputation as an essential album. Houses Of The Holy’s hard-edged rock songs were clearly influenced by the band’s experiences while traversing the globe. Meanwhile, the album’s grandstanding closing song, The Ocean, found Plant acknowledging Zeppelin’s ever-growing and faithful army of fans (“Singing to an ocean/I can hear the ocean’s roar”) who were now packing out the world’s biggest auditoriums. After releasing their first four records in just under three years, Zeppelin were finally afforded a bit of breathing room with which to create Houses of the Holy.

Their untitled fourth album, commonly known as Led Zeppelin IV (1971), is one of the best-selling albums in history with 37 million copies sold. The album includes "Black Dog", "Rock and Roll" and "Stairway to Heaven", with the latter being among the most popular and influential works in rock history. Houses of the Holy (1973) yielded "The Song Remains the Same" and "Over the Hills and Far Away". Physical Graffiti (1975), a double album, featured "The Rover" and "Kashmir". The group comprised vocalist Robert Plant, guitarist Jimmy Page, bassist and keyboardist John Paul Jones, and drummer John Bonham. With a heavy, guitar-driven sound, they are cited as one of the progenitors of hard rock and heavy metal, although their style drew from a variety of influences, including blues and folk music.

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Page would occasionally slip the main riff into extended solos, both with Led Zeppelin and at solo performances, and "The Crunge" lived on thanks to samples by Double D and Steinski ("Lesson 3 - The History of Hip Hop Mix") in 1985 and De La Soul's "The Magic Number" four years later. “Right through, the majority of the music was built on an extreme energy,” explained Plant. That was never more apparent than at the LA Forum and Long Beach Arena on June 25 and 27 (two shows preserved on the 2003-released live album How The West Was Won). That “extreme energy” was further distilled on the three Houses Of The Holy tracks played during the gigs, despite the new album not being out for another nine months. Yes, “Houses of the Holy” received critical acclaim upon its release and continues to be highly regarded by music critics.

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.

In between the legs of their worldwide tour, they recorded their fifth album and the first one with a proper title, “Houses of the Holy”, a term they used to describe the huge venues and stadiums where their fans partook in the Led Zeppelin sacrament. Rather like another Led Zeppelin classic, Black Dog, The Ocean pivots around a sinewy riff played in an ambitious time signature (a repeated figure consisting of one bar in standard 4/4 time, followed by another in 7/8) which really shouldn’t work. In practice, though, it not only works like a dream, but it also rocks enthusiastically, too. Just to keep the listener on their toes, the song also includes a little Dion And The Belmonts-esque doo-wop breakdown before surging through a rampant final coda in which Plant exhorts “Oh, sooo good! According to Led Zeppelin biographer Dave Lewis, The Ocean’s title derives from “the sea of heads facing the band in auditoriums”, and the excellent Houses Of The Holy ensured those venues would only increase in size as Led Zeppelin powered on towards their classic double album, Physical Graffiti.

Equally divisive is the pronunciation of the title, which many of the uninitiated (much to Robert Plant‘s amusement) articulate as “Dear Maker,” believing it to have quasi-spiritual overtones. Instead, the playful track takes its name from an old British music-hall joke with a groan-worthy punch line. ” (Rendered “Jamaica?” by a thick Cockney accent.) “No, she went of her own accord.” Pause for laughter. After the pyrotechnics of The Song Remains The Same, the seven-minute The Rain Song provides a welcome oasis of calm. Famously written in response to George Harrison’s gripe that Led Zeppelin “never did any ballads”, the band rubbed their response in further by adopting the same opening chord sequence Harrison used for his Abbey Road classic, Something.

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.

Bucking the style of their previous albums, Led Zeppelin gave their fifth full-length a name consisting of more than roman numerals and/or cryptic symbols. Houses of the Holy took its title from a song Page had composed, with lyrics that honor both “sacred” places of teenage communion – including movie theaters, drive-ins and even concert arenas – as well as the expanse of the human soul. “It’s about all of us being houses of the Holy Spirit, in a sense,” he revealed in a 2014 interview on Sirius XM. The track had been recorded and mixed during sessions at Electric Lady Studios in June 1972, but ironically it was cut from the album that bore its name. Apparently the group felt the number too closely resembled the mid-tempo strut of “Dancing Days” and instead held the song for their next album, the 1975 double disc Physical Graffiti. Over The Hills And Far Away dated back to Plant and Page’s fecund rural writing sessions at Bron-Yr-Aur, the remote North Wales cottage the pair rented in 1970 to prepare most of the material for Led Zeppelin III.

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").

"Over the Hills and Far Away." was the first single released from Houses of the Holy, reaching No. 51. The band previewed the song months earlier, during its U.S. tour dates in 1972. Originally named the New Yardbirds, Led Zeppelin signed a deal with Atlantic Records that gave them considerable artistic freedom. Initially unpopular with critics, they achieved significant commercial success with eight studio albums over ten years. Their 1969 debut, Led Zeppelin, was a top-ten album in several countries and featured such tracks as "Good Times Bad Times", "Dazed and Confused" and "Communication Breakdown". Led Zeppelin II (1969) was their first number-one album, and yielded "Whole Lotta Love" and "Ramble On".