How Jimmy Page helped John Bonham assemble the Led Zeppelin song ‘Moby Dick’
‘Moby Dick’ is all John Bonham. It might include contributions from Jimmy Page and John Paul Jones during the intro and outro sections, but make no mistake, ‘Moby Dick’ is not a Led Zeppelin song. Instead, the track is a showcase for the greatest rock and roll drummer of all time, working at the height of his powers for four minutes of ecstatic rhythmic bliss. It might appear on a Led Zeppelin album, and if you stream the song it will be labelled as being by “Led Zeppelin”, but ‘Moby Dick’ is only ‘Moby Dick’ if John Bonham is involved.
On the brief occasions that Led Zeppelin reunited over the four decades since Bonham’s passing, ‘Moby Dick’ has never been played. The drum solo spot belonged to John Bonham and John Bonham alone from the day the band formed until the day he died. Every drummer who had the unenviable task of filling his shoes, from Phil Collins to Tony Thompson to Jason Bonham, has respected the throne enough not to attempt their own version of ‘Moby Dick’.
Bonham never played the song same twice. Most of that was because ‘Moby Dick’ was, by design, an improvised drum solo that was meant to ebb and flow with Bonham’s changing mood from night to night. But John Bonham didn’t even play ‘Moby Dick’ in the studio as it came out on the record. To achieve the song’s final take, Bonham required Jimmy Page’s assistance.
On top of being the band’s guitarist and primary music writer, Page also acted as Led Zeppelin’s producer throughout their entire career. It was Page’s duty to supervise recording sessions, lord over mixing sessions, and ensure that the band’s sound was consistent up to his lofty standards. So when it was decided that Bonham would get one of his legendary solos on record, Page had a hand in what the end product wound up being.
It wasn’t indirect either. The version of ‘Moby Dick’ that ended up being on Led Zeppelin II was an amalgamation of different takes in different studios. Bonham had a habit of improvising solos during recording sessions during the in-between moments of set-up and tuning, and Page instructed engineers to record every last note of music that the band played just in case something inspiration came out. That included Bonham’s drum figures, so when it came time to assemble ‘Moby Dick’, Page had several different drum takes to choose from.
The most obvious difference you can hear on record comes from the sections featuring Page and Jones on accompaniment. Those intro and outro sections were recorded (as can be heard on the deluxe version of Led Zeppelin II) with Bonham’s improvised drum parts placed in the middle. It’s uncertain how many different takes were combined to make the final version of ‘Moby Dick’, but Bonham had a habit of tuning his own drums and making them a similar pitch each time, so no matter what studio he was in, his drum sound remained consistent.
In the years following the release of ‘Moby Dick’, Bonham’s drum solos became a show-stopping aspect of Zeppelin’s legendary stage shows. Often, the song was labelled as either ‘Moby Dick’ or ‘Pat’s Delight’ in reference to Bonham’s wife. When Bonham improvised another solo in the studio in 1976, Page later assembled it into another studio solo that appeared on the compilation album Coda, ‘Bonzo’s Montreaux’.
Check out the studio version of ‘Moby Dick’ down below.
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