102. Led Zeppelin - The Song Remains the Same

This album defines the early part of my teenage years. Every memory of time spent in Eddie's fort or Dennis's garage or Julie's bedroom or in the sump or the schoolyard has a song from this album attached to it. Every plan we hatched, every long, pot fueled discussion about what we would do with our lives and the rock star lives we would lead were soundtracked with the wail of Jimi Page's guitar.

Double album. Just nine songs and four sides of music. A side long Dazed and Confused that was so long I knew couples that started dating and broke up while it played, so profound for us at the time musically that the build up of tension in the music left us spent when it was over. The Moby Dick drum solo. John Henry Bonham! Rock and Roll.

We knew this album inside and out. Every note, every nuance, every word that was changed or added from studio versions. We played it in the park, we played it at parties, we played it the dark of night on our headphones, listening to certain parts over and over, pretending we were Jimi Page or Robert Plant or maybe just pretending we were there at Madison Square Garden, like everyone slightly older than us claimed to be. We wore the tour shirts as if we had been there and many years later, my son would be gifted with a genuine tshirt from that tour -not a replica, but a shirt that was actually there, worn and sweated in by someone at those shows, and he put that shirt in a frame which still hangs on his wall and he listens to the album the way I listened to it, with awe and a deep satisfaction.

This album is magic for me. I may not love Zeppelin the way I used to; I barely listen to them anymore. But any song from these discs, just one note is all it takes, and I'm back there in that place where we were young and free and full of impossible dreams that we still thought were possible.

Does anybody remember laughter?

Favorite Song: Dazed and Confused
Album wiki

27. Led Zeppelin - IV

This is the album that defined my youth, for better or worse. I can still hear in my head the slight hiss right before Black Dog starts up and if I sit here in silence long enough, I can play the entire album in my head right up until the part where I'm all worn out from air guitaring on When the Levee Breaks, and it will be the mid 70's all over again and I'll be in that fort we made above Dennis's garage or in my bed with the headphones on or in Gloria's room with the black light posters and everything smells like pot and my mouth tastes like Parliament cigarettes and warm Miller beer.

A word or two on that song. I used to think this song was the greatest thing ever written. I thought it was deep and full of existentialism. I spent many nights debating the meaning of the line "to be a rock and not to roll." It was until many years later that I realized the words probably mean nothing except that Robert Plant read a lot of books. He strung some thoughts and words from his favorite novels together, mixed them in a blender and called it Stairway to Heaven.

The problem here is that Zep inadvertently invented a formula for overrated songs: The plaintive singing of cryptic lyrics about five stanzas too long, followed by a guitar solo that makes one envision the guitarist standing on top of a mountain, wind blowing through his hair while his screeching riffs conjure up all kinds of inclement weather because it's that good. And don't get me wrong. I love Zep. But Stairway makes me cringe. Maybe I'm just embarrassed that I used to believe this was the greatest song ever written. Then again, I also used to believe that you could see the Statue of Liberty in the reflection of a lake on Bear Mountain, but both those beliefs were born of the same drug.

Favorite song: When the Levee Breaks (the only song on this album I will still rock out to)
1971 Rolling Stone Review of IV