Jimmy Page shares long-lost Led Zeppelin demo ‘The Seasons’
Led Zeppelin guitarist Jimmy Page has revealed that when considering how best to sequence the band’s fifth album, 1973’s Houses of the Holy, he wanted a “short overture” that segued into a track called ‘The Seasons’. The song eventually became the two opening pieces of the album, ‘The Song Remains the Same’ and ‘The Rain Song’.
Page recently uploaded ‘The Seasons’ to YouTube, and in the description, he explained how the opening pair of Houses of the Holy tracks emerged from ‘The Seasons’. He wrote: “My original idea for the opening tracks for ‘Houses of the Holy’ was that a short overture would be a rousing instrumental introduction with layered electric guitars that would segue in to’ The Seasons’, later to be titled ‘The Rain Song’. Again there would be a contrasting acoustic guitar instrumental movement with melotron that could lead to the first vocal of the album and the first verse of the song.”
Page continued: “‘The Seasons’ was a memo to myself as a reminder of the sequence of the song and various ideas I’d had for it in its embryonic stage. I’d worked on it over one evening at home. During the routining of the overture now titled ‘The Plumpton and Worcester Races’, the half time section was born and the overture shaped in to the song, ‘The Song Remains The Same’. These rehearsals were done in Puddle Town on the River Piddle in Dorset, UK.”
Listen to ‘The Seasons’ below.
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