“Don’t blame me”: The Led Zeppelin song Jimmy Page said had a glaring mistake
When thinking of the musical geniuses who ruled the 1960s, one guitarist sticks his head above the parapet, waiting for some acknowledgement. True, Jimi Hendrix was certainly the most gifted guitarist the world had ever known, but his talents seemed God-given. Like a true savant, he seemed to only plug himself in and let the good times roll. If you were looking for the kind of dedicated genius who devoted their life to their craft, then Jimmy Page is your top choice.
Page, not only as part of Led Zeppelin but also The Yardbirds and the many, many sessions he delivered as a studio hand, can be rightly thought of as one of the most diligent guitarists of all time. A true student of the six-string, Page gathered up reams of influences and inspirations, learned them and then used them to forge his own path toward an unstoppable legacy.
He was the unbridled leader of Led Zeppelin, and, through his creativity, the band became behemoth rock icons. But while they should be considered one of the most important groups of all time, they were not without their errors. Perhaps most notably, the quartet found themselves battling court cases and plagiarism, while there is also a case for more than a few tracks from the band that can source, at the very least, some heavy influence from the blues masters.
But perhaps the most curious misstep the band made is on the recording of ‘You Shook Me’ which includes a truly glaring error. Thankfully, Page can see the funny side, as he told Guitar World: “There’s a moment in the second [BBC] version of ‘You Shook Me’ that’s funny and intense.”
A blues classic, the song was released by Muddy Waters just a year prior to Led Zeppelin letting their own version go. Waters said of the release: “I feel good, sure I like it. I love it. I wish someone would call my name 50 million times a day. The more you call, the more people gonna hear. That don’t bother me.”
Page’s former Yardbird bandmate, Jeff Beck, would do another version of the track a few months prior, with Page noting of that release: “Beck and I came from the same sort of roots. If you’ve got things you enjoy, then you want to do them – to the horrifying point where we’d done our first LP with ‘You Shook Me’, and then I heard he’d done ‘You Shook Me.’ I was terrified because I thought they’d be the same. But I hadn’t even known he’d done it, and he hadn’t known that we had.”
However, one version will live in Page’s head more so than any other, and that’s the one with the glaring error. Page explained: “The guitar comes in really loud, and you can tell that the engineer was caught by surprise because he panics and whacks the fader down. We left it because it’s a very real moment.”
Mistakes happen all the time, but perhaps what is most surprising is that Page, ever meticulous, would leave this one in. And, if you needed any proof of just how painstaking he could be in the studio, then he confirms it by noting: “So, just in case anybody thinks it’s my fault, don’t blame me, I wasn’t the engineer!”
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