The song the Led Zeppelin thought was too crazy: “Has he gone mad?”
In the modern musical age, with so many pretenders and nostalgic homages knocking around, it can be easy to forget just how fiercely original Led Zeppelin were. During the late 1960s, when Jimmy Page first formed the group from the ashes of The Yardbirds, the band sounded like no other. With a staunch and unwavering artistic manifesto, Page embarked upon a true rock revolution, and many of the band’s most notable compositions sounded otherworldly upon initial release. Indeed, many still sound otherworldly decades later.
Jimmy Page came into Led Zeppelin with an unparalleled wealth of musical experience, particularly for a man of his age. Having devoted himself to the mastery of the guitar from a young age, Page spent the vast majority of the 1960s as a session musician, lending his talents to everything from chart-topping pop hits to smooth lounge music. During this time, the guitarist rose to become an incredibly sought-after session player, giving him an intimate knowledge of both the music industry and countless different musical genres.
So, when Page came to form Led Zeppelin in 1968, he incorporated all of this inspiration and experience into the new group. From the very beginning, the guitarist was determined to make Zeppelin unlike any other rock and roll band in operation, and he quickly achieved those aims. Pioneering the style of hard rock and crafting a wide range of expansive, awe-inspiring records, the band instantly became one of the world’s most notable groups.
Speaking to their originality and appeal, the band produced a consistent flow of groundbreaking releases, each more captivating than the last. In the grand scheme of things, Led Zeppelin were only together for a relatively short period of time, 12 years, but they managed to release four timeless albums in the first two years of operation, thanks largely to the tireless efforts of Jimmy Page himself.
In addition to writing and performing much of the band’s material, Page was also heavily invested in the production side of things, having been recruited as a producer numerous times during his session years – perhaps most notably for Immediate Records. These production skills allowed Page to meticulously craft virtually every Zeppelin track into something endlessly expansive and mind-bendingly original.
Although the musical mainstream received Led Zeppelin’s 1976 record Presence poorly, and it became the band’s lowest-selling album to date, die-hard fans of the group are able to recognise the brilliance of the album. Its production was noted by Jimmy Page putting in extensive shifts, working on his lonesome, and the resulting record is a cacophony of inventive and otherworldly sounds, ushered in by the opening track, ‘Achilles Last Stand’.
A ten-and-a-half-minute epic, the album’s opening track immediately sets the standard for the subsequent tracklisting. With a driving atmosphere and air of danger, the song largely arrived from Page’s extensive production work. The guitarist once recalled, “It was done in one evening, the whole of the arrangement. To be honest with you, the other guys didn’t know.”
Seemingly, the band were a little apprehensive about the song initially. Recalling the attitudes of the group, Page remembered his bandmates saying, “‘Has he gone mad? Does he know what he’s doing?’” But at the end of it, the picture became clear,” he explained. “It was like a little vignette, every time something comes around.” The final product certainly speaks for itself, reflecting the originality of the group and the profound artistry of Jimmy Page, even if the album was viewed as a commercial flop upon initial release. Perhaps it was simply too ahead of its time.
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