The classic rock song that Jimmy Page thought was inadvertently hilarious: “I fell out of bed”
Jimmy Page wasn’t the kind of musician who did things for the sake of it, and when it came to writing and recording music, everything was intentional.
Page worked as a session musician before he started Led Zeppelin, and that was a huge benefit for him in the long run. The first reason is because of how much the band relied on the idea of merging different genres, which they could do seamlessly because of how much of an expert Page had become at playing these different genres. He called it “light and shade,” which essentially referred to the cohesive combination of contrasting sounds.
However, he didn’t exclusively learn about different genres during this period, he also learnt about various recording techniques. Led Zeppelin’s sound wasn’t just the byproduct of great musicians with great ideas, solid production value also helped the band fold an energy into pockets of their songs, unlike anything people had heard prior.
Page was always open to different recording techniques, regardless of how unconventional they might have been, and while he knew that making great music didn’t just mean being technically proficient, it also meant taking risks and trying new things, even if those ideas felt somewhat silly when originally put forward. This is why he wound up playing with a violin bow on a fair few Led Zeppelin songs.
The story goes that Led Zeppelin were recording in a studio that had had a string section in, and as such, there were a lot of violin and cello bows lying around – one of the engineers asked Page if he had considered using the bow to play the guitar, and the idea wasn’t unheard of, Pink Floyd had used bows when recording their album Piper At The Gates Of Dawn, but in the early days of Pink Floyd, it’s likely this decision was influenced by its experimental nature rather than its practicality. Page didn’t look at it that way.
As previously stated, Page didn’t do things by accident or for the sake of it, if he was going to pick up a bow and play his guitar with it, he wasn’t going to do it to be quirky, it had to sound good. Luckily for him, it did – it created an atmospheric and ambient tone which complemented Robert Plant’s screeching vocals perfectly, you’ll hear it used on a few Zeppelin tracks, such as ‘Dazed and Confused’ and ‘Whole Lotta Love’ – Page also used the bow when playing live frequently.
While the playing technique allowed Page to tap into a unique sound, there was another benefit that came with using a bow rather than a pick when playing guitar: It looked really cool. So many rock bands are built on image, and while we praise Led Zeppelin for being musical innovators, there’s no escaping that they also looked the part. Before Page had even let a note slip from his six-string, the moment he took to the stage with a bow in hand or a double-necked guitar over his shoulder, people already knew they were in the presence of a rockstar.
With such an iconic look, it’s no surprise that people wanted to try and emulate it, which is exactly what John Sykes did on Whitesnake’s ‘Still of the Night’. In the music video, the guitarist picks up a bow and starts playing the six-string in a similar way to Page. While Page was touched by the homage, he couldn’t help but laugh, as it appeared that, despite playing with a bow, it wasn’t actually used in the song. The Led Zeppelin guitarist admitted that he fell out of his bed because he was laughing so much.
“Shall we get this story straight?” said the Zeppelin guitarist. “The first time I saw ‘Still Of The Night’ I was sitting on my bed watching the television and I did fall off the bed laughing when the guy picked up the violin bow.”
Concluding, “That’s what it was about. It wasn’t anything to do with the rest of the song. It was purely the reference to the bow, which wasn’t used on the record as far as I know.”
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