‘Since I’ve Been Loving You’: How Jimmy Page paid tribute to Jeff Beck in a Led Zeppelin classic
Although British quartet Led Zeppelin released many acclaimed and widely influential albums in their 12 years, their third album, 1970’s Led Zeppelin III, remains the most divisive. Aside from the final track, ‘Hats Off to (Roy) Harper’, the album saw the band dispense with the propensity to cover songs exhibited on their first two offerings and pursue originality instead.
Delivering cuts such as ‘Immigrant Song’ and ‘Gallows Pole’, the group also greatly enhanced their creative scope on the album, bringing in more varied instrumentation than before. Retrospectively, this is why the album is so polarising among hardcore fans, as the band ditched heavy metal to hunt a newer side of their sound.
Outside of the tracks above, one of the album’s highlights is ‘Since I’ve Been Loving You’. One of the first pieces prepared for the record, and one of the hardest to capture, it remains one of the more esteemed moments of this period. Regarded as one of the finest moments in the proliferation of blues rock, guitarist Jimmy Page’s performance set a precedent for all else to follow in the genre.
Of the song, virtuoso guitarist Joe Satriani later said: “‘Since I’ve Been Loving You’ was a perfect example of taking a blues structure but striking out on your own. They were breaking ground, not copying. I love that Page would always just go for it. Some other guitarist might have better technique, but what Page did would always trump it because the spirit was so overwhelming. Whatever he did would turn into a technique.”
Although there are many talking points regarding the song’s music, the most compelling aspect comes from Jimmy Page’s nod to his old friend and former Yardbirds bandmate, Jeff Beck. Famously, alongside Eric Clapton, Page and Beck were two of the most illustrious guitarists of 1960s London, with Page describing him and Beck as “arch-buddies”.
As Page joined The Yardbirds towards the end of Beck’s tenure, he was familiar with all of his friend’s recordings with the London group. When it came to Page writing ‘Since I’ve Been Loving You’ with Led Zeppelin, he included the same five-note riff in the introduction that Beck opened The Yardbirds’ ‘New York City Blues’ with. Notably, the main difference between the pair is that Beck’s is coloured by a heavy dose of distortion.
Aside from that point, the two songs are markedly different. Quoted in 2012’s Light and Shade: Conversations with Jimmy Page, Page made light of the connection. He joked: “That’s quite a traditional way to open up a blues, on those first few notes, isn’t it?”
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