Led Zeppelin’s Led Zeppelin IV (2005)

I was impressed with Erik Davis’s exegesis of the great Led Zeppelin album for the 33-1/3 series. It seems to me it’s a certain model of how these books should be done. It starts with a behemoth of not just rock or the ‘70s but of popular culture itself, and it meets the album on its own terms. And on ours as well—his treatment of the fatigue now associated with hearing “Stairway to Heaven” yet again is one of the best parts of his analysis of the iconic classic rock radio staple and of the book at large. Led Zeppelin IV came out while I was in high school and immediately changed the landscape. I paid little attention to the rumored strains of Aleister Crowley and J.R.R. Tolkien or any of that—I thought that was just part of the hype, if anything. Davis makes a strong and vaguely comical case for taking the various mystical vapors into account. He is often gently making fun of the band’s various Spinal Tap elements, even allowing that ultimately he still embraces it all. There is some kind of unholy allure to Led Zeppelin IV, we must admit. Davis consults born-again Christians gravely worried for souls lost to the band. Individual band members are an important part of this story too, of course. Davis gives them their full due. I had no idea, for example, how important John Paul Jones was beyond playing bass. I appreciated Davis’s fealty to John Bonham as one of the great drummers. For me, Jimmy Page has always been kind of a gnomic figure, both with Led Zeppelin and as a guitar player (not to mention producer). I need to get to more Zeppelin literature, but Davis clarified a lot for me about Page. And Robert Plant too, who I’ve always taken as the face of the band, even knowing he’s just the singer, gets fleshed out for me further here too. Davis doesn’t feel the need for a chapter on his personal experience, which is a bit refreshing for this series. He compresses his ardor into every line, although come to think of it he does open with a humorous personal anecdote. He’s funny too, matching Led Zeppelin’s cringiest gestures (e.g., the lyrics of “Stairway to Heaven”) with his own self-conscious credulousness. I see now that I missed a lot of the faerie leitmotifs. But I never changed the station when any of the eight songs on Led Zeppelin IV played on the radio, at least until about 1977, when my responses were more sporadic than automatic. I mean, sometimes I changed the station. Led Zeppelin IV still holds up, as I saw the other day playing it through for the first time in a long while. I’m talking about even “Stairway to Heaven,” which Davis describes as less a song or a track and more a spell. Correct! And it can still work, although, yes, it is often plagued by the fatigue. I will say I got a little tired of Davis’s insistence on referring to the title as the four unpronounceable glyphs. But it’s all in the spirit. By any other name, the glorious Led Zeppelin IV!

In case the library is closed due to pandemic, which is over.