To me, Led Zeppelin was always a sacred cow of rock music just waiting to be slaughtered. Overblown riffs, lyrics that threatened to give some poor groupie “a whole lotta love”, songs that pined for a return to some orc and hobbit-filled Albion runic past, all by a band from Reading (or somewhere) who would have been plumbers if it weren’t for the Beatles and the Stones. No offence to plumbers or people from Reading.

I still kind of feel that way, but there’s no denying that ‘Kashmir’, from their highly-rated Physical Grafitti album, is one of the best songs ever. Definitively.

Built on a fabulously simple riff that just escalates up the scales, and backed up by John “Bonzo” Bonham’s driving, smashing, slightly phased-out drums, this is eight-and-a-half minutes of prog rock heaven. Very unbluesy by Zeppelin standards, it’s got a real eastern mysticism feel to it.

The lyrics are the usual Zeppelin tripe (I’m a real cynic here – most of my favourite bands hate Zeppelin) about being “a traveler of both time and space”, “pilot of the storm”, “elders of the gentle race”, etcetera ad nauseum. I think it’s about being stoned – the giveaway here is the completely cliched “I been flying…ain’t no denying”.

But look past the lyrics, and any preconceptions you might have about the Zep, and this song turns into a real gem. I first heard it watching Fast Times at Ridgemont High, that criminally underrated ’80s teen flick. Damone, the school lothario, advises a friend to play the Zep when practicing the art of seduction on a young lady, and hilarity (or mild discomfort) ensues. More recently, it’s been sampled by Puff Daddy (for it is he) for his suitably pompous (and terrible) ‘Come With Me‘ single.

Having scanned a couple of different sites while writing this, it appears that this has something to do with the band finding musical inspiration while traveling around North Africa. I prefer my explanation, it’s simpler. Anyway, here’s the song on YouTube (Zep never made videos of course), and here’s the surprisingly punky version they played at their recent re-union concert at the O2 Arena.

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 8th, 2008 at 11:14 am and is filed under Retro Classics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.