The Led Zeppelin song that was almost accidentally cut from the album
There aren’t too many runs of classic albums that can reach the heights of what Led Zeppelin achieved. Hitting the ground running with their debut record, the band soldiered through the 1970s as one of the premiere acts of classic rock, leaving legions of imitators in their wake with one fantastic song after another. Although there aren’t too many blemishes in their discography, one of their classic tunes could have been scrapped entirely if time had been different.
Among the group’s self-titled era of albums, Led Zeppelin III tends to be the strangest of the tetralogy. Featuring predominantly acoustic instruments, Jimmy Page was known to indulge both the light and the dark sides of his playing across the record, from the beauty behind the solo of ‘Since I’ve Been Loving You’ to the primal stomp of ‘Immigrant Song’.
Since this was the first time Zeppelin settled down after recording Led Zeppelin II on the road, Page was thankful for being able to rest. Rather than fly blind through some of their material, Page remembered using the facilities at Headley Grange to decompress from the road and jam for the hell of it.
Between the classics stood ‘Celebration Day’, which would become a staple of the group’s live show. When tracking the song in the studio, the band ran into a problem when their tape machine nearly malfunctioned when sequencing the piece.
Coming after the song ‘Friends’ on the album, the original master tape had a kink and wouldn’t play properly when put into the tape machine. To make up for the subtle hiccup, the band had to lose part of the song’s intro, instead using the final strains from the string section of ‘Friends’ to make up for the mistake.
While one of the standout elements of the piece comes from Page’s riffing, the primary muscle of the song comes courtesy of John Bonham. Having already proven himself as one of the greatest drummers to walk the Earth on the instrumental ‘Moby Dick’, ‘Bonzo’ plays around with the rhythm at various points in the song, making the track feel like it’s ebbing and flowing like a ship on the high seas.
It was that kind of power that made the band switch up their traditional approach to volume, with Robert Plant recalling in Guitar World, “Besides being one of the best drummers I have ever heard, he was also one of the loudest. He was the reason we had to start buying bigger amps.”
Though the band would be testing each element of their sound on this album, Page would go on to bigger and better things only a few months after the record was finished. Looking to prove their critics wrong about their unnecessary hype, Led Zeppelin IV arrived with little fanfare and became one of the biggest albums that Led Zeppelin would ever make, featuring cornerstone tracks such as ‘Stairway to Heaven’ and ‘Black Dog’.
While the seems of ‘Celebration Day’ can be heard whenever playing through Led Zeppelin III, the ramshackle energy gives the song more character in the end. Even though it might have a few sonic blemishes, the soul hidden in the vinyl grooves was too pleasing to pass up.
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