By: Martyn Coppack
Let me tell you a story. Once upon a time I fell in love. OK, it probably wasn’t love, but I fell for someone. You know what it’s like. Anyway, it didn’t last…in fact, it lasted for about two weeks. I felt used and like a mug. But it didn’t matter, I just thought it was love. My heart was broken, I was confused, it was a Sunday, I had to tidy the house…I put on Physical Graffiti.
Ever since I first heard this album, albeit through my brother who was a huge fan, it always beguiled me. It’s sheer eclecticism left me confused (see the thread appearing?), the ‘in your face’ experimentation left me confused (I was what? Twelve?), the tenacity of it all simply overwhelmed me, this wasn’t Led Zep 4 with its easy ‘Stairway To Heaven’ or Led Zep 2 with it’s rather rocking ‘Living Loving Maid’, this was something else. This album was like an alien from outer space. This was unlike anything I’d ever heard before. I didn’t like it. Well…apart from ‘Kashmir’.
Fast forward a few years (more than a few, you know, poetic license) and I’m a grown man/boy discovering the joys of drink and drugs and basically getting shitfaced and listening to rock and roll. I stumble across this album again. This behemoth. What do I do? There’s only one thing left to do…listen.
And suddenly it clicked. Have you seen that moment in Almost Famous when the kid drops the needle on Tommy and his head starts to bop…that was me. From those opening chords of ‘Custard Pie’ I was engrossed, when Jimmy Page’s chiming guitar comes in on ‘The Rover’ I was sucked in, by the mid section of ‘In My Time Of Dying’ I was enraptured, by ‘Kashmir’ there was no going back.
I suppose (and I have only ever heard this album on vinyl), the first record is the most popular. It’s got all the classics on it, ‘Kashmir’, ‘Trampled Underfoot’, ‘Houses of the Holy’. Songs ubiquitous with the Led Zeppelin legend. These were the songs I soaked in first. Especially ‘Kashmir’. Later on though, something started to click with the other songs. ‘Down By The Seaside’ had always stood out but it was ‘Ten Years Ago’ which mysteriously grabbed me. How could a song with no particular hook or chorus be so good, what was happening? And then ‘Bron Y Aur’, a slight instrumental, would creep up on me. This was an album to savour, one to pick apart…but always one to play in one sitting. It was majestic, unlike anything I’d heard before, it was simply…Led Zeppelin.
I grow in and out of love with Led Zeppelin. That is, I play them to death, then I ignore them for ages. They are always a band ever floating in my record collection though and when the mood hits me I’ll pick up that vinyl and one spin will turn into a session. That session will always revolve around Physical Graffiti though.
Is it bloated? Is it simple excess of the Seventies? I don’t believe so…I would even argue that other Zep albums are more bloated than this one (including Presence, which only has five songs on it). No, the diversity, the talent, the total rock and roll outburst of everything on this album speaks volumes to me. It is practically perfect….I say practically because true rock and roll should never be perfect.
So back to that day I had my heart broken and decided to do the housework….as those opening chords of ‘Custard Pie’ kicked in I started to nod my head, by the time ‘The Rover’ had come in I had come to terms with it, but the time of ‘Kashmir’ I knew my only true love was rock and roll. I can’t stop talking about love.
Next time….the day Marillion took over my life
