Album of the Week - Vol.9

Physical Graffiti LED ZEPPELIN (1975)
Week: Tue 9th Jan to Mon 15th Jan 2018
Format: CD
Producer: Jimmy Page
Track listing:
CD 1:
1. Custard Pie
2. The Rover
3. In My Time of Dying *
4. Houses of the Holy *
5. Trampled Underfoot *
6. Kashmir *
CD 2:
1. In the Light
2. Bron-Y-Aur *
3. Down by the Seaside *
4. Ten Years Gone
5. Night Flight
6. The Wanton Song
7. Boogie With Stu
8. Black Country Woman
9. Sick Again
TOTAL RUNNING TIME: 82:45

My listening of this album kicked off because January 9th was Jimmy Page's 74th birthday. I don't know if I picked this particular Zeppelin album because of the length or because I just really dig the tunes. I only learned recently that the record was extended into a double album by adding outtakes from previous Led Zep efforts. So, without those tracks, Physical Graffiti might have looked something like this:

In the Light
Custard Pie
Ten Years Gone
In My Time of Dying
Trampled Underfoot
Kashmir
The Wanton Song
Sick Again

That's a total guess, of course. I have no idea what order the band would have chosen. In the Light just seems like a better opener for the whole album. Works great kicking of the second disc though. 

So, where did the other songs come from, I hear you ask? Kinda. Well, the devout Led Zep fan will probably know this. The earliest track here is Jimmy Page's lovely instrumental Bron-Y-Aur, which was recorded during the Led Zeppelin III sessions in 1970. I first heard the song as it played in a sequence in their concert film The Song Remains The Same. I was in my mid-teens and had just been getting into Zeppelin, and I was only familiar with the first four albums. My dad and I bought them on CD after I returned from a jaunt to NZ with the youth theatre company I was in (he bought II and IV, whilst I got I and III). Anyway, I loved the piece of music, and it wasn't until I got given a taped copy of Physical Graffiti that I knew what it was. This was pre-internet, okay?

From the sessions for Led Zeppelin IV, came these songs:
- Night Flight
- Boogie With Stu (named for Ian Stewart - pianist, road manager and co-founder of the Rolling Stones - who plays on the jammed track)
- Down By the Seaside

I can see why they didn't make the album. They would have messed with the flow a bit. Even though Four Sticks and Black Dog sound like fun, they're pretty intricate pieces of music. The loose blues of Boogie With Stu would clash against nearly every other track. I guess it would also be hard to imagine those three songs in that album with nearly fifty years of hindsight. Or is that hindhearing?

The remaining outtakes, The Rover, Black Country Woman and Houses of the Holy all came out of the Houses of the Holy sessions, of course. I find it bizarre when a band has a song that shares its name with an album, but it isn't on the same album! I may be remembering this incorrectly, but I heard tell that Bon Scott was so enamoured with the title of AC/DC's High Voltage album, that he felt that they should have a song of the same name. It would appear on their TNT album. I think Houses of the Holy might have been a better song choice over, say, The Crunge on that album. However, it does fit on Physical Graffiti quite nicely.

This is one of the few double albums that seems to benefit from its length, rather than buckle under the weight of the material. Sure, some songs feel like loose jams, but they're still extremely listenable, and sit well amongst everything else. 

While the first four albums (quite rightly) get a lot of praise and preference, I think this gets overlooked because it's a double. With bonafide Zep classics like Kashmir, Trampled Underfoot and Houses of the Holy on offer, it's timeless seventies English rock you can gorge on without filling up on bread.