The 1976 Led Zeppelin song they only performed once as a “challenge”
Until the mid-1970s, Led Zeppelin seemed like an indestructible rock ‘n’ roll force. Every year, their stature and legend grew, but then, life had a way of bringing them crashing back down to earth.
Considering the circumstances that surrounded Presence, the studio could have proved to be the last place they should have been. However, sometimes, during difficult moments, work can provide the perfect distraction, and it can be used as motivation in their strive for greatness.
Firstly, in 1975, they were forced to cancel a series of live shows after singer Robert Plant suffered serious injuries that left him wheelchair-bound for a significant period. In all honesty, he should have used this time to recuperate, but it wasn’t enough to keep him away from the studio.
As they had no immediate commitments to hit the road due to Plant’s health problems, Led Zeppelin could have taken their time with the creation of Presence. Instead, they went pedal to the metal, completing Presence in less than three weeks.
They had not really had any prolonged period of absence before the injury left with no choice but to sit at home. Once the album was released, it was another year until Led Zeppelin were ready to perform live, and by that time, the tracks on Presence were no longer fresh or new. Therefore, when they made their long-awaited comeback in Dallas on April 1st, 1977, only two songs from the album, ‘Achilles Last Stand’ and ‘Nobody’s Fault But Mine’, were included in their set.
Upon regaining fitness, it was only a short time before Led Zeppelin returned to the studio again to create 1978’s In Through the Out Door. By this stage, the English rock titans had eight albums to their name, and they had to make a series of difficult decisions when electing what song to play at each concert.
As a result, there were plentiful songs from the Presence era that never had the chance to translate to the live arena. One of the victims of this scenario was ‘For Your Life’, which was left to rest on the back burner. Tragically, before they had a chance to play the song live, drummer John Bonham passed away, which put an end to Led Zeppelin.
Although their career was not filled with many regrets, the surviving band members always retained a fondness towards ‘For Your Life’. Much to the delight of fans, they unexpectedly chose to sprinkle it into their set for their farewell show at London’s O2 Arena in 2007.
The easy route would have been to allow themselves to slip into old habits by exclusively sticking to the classics they’ve played on countless occasions, yet they chose to integrate ‘For Your Life’ to see if they could do justice to it as a live band.
Jimmy Page later told Mojo many years later about why they played it in London: “‘For Your Life’ is a pretty complex song when you listen to it, and it’s one that we’d done in the rehearsals [leading up to the O2], which was almost like a challenge”.
“It was a case of, ‘Let’s see if we can do this’. We were playing the record to just reconnect.”
The band were also inspired to play the track as a thank you to their most loyal fans in attendance, with Page adding, “We thought, ‘If we can pull it off and put that in most people will probably never know what it was, apart from people who really love Led Zeppelin.'”
Much to his amusement, Page recalled that some reviews of the show mistook ‘For Your Life’ as a new song, further highlighting that its inclusion was for the die-hards rather than the fair-weather fans in attendance.
The decision to play ‘For Your Life’ also aligns with the ethos that Led Zeppelin inhabited throughout every step of their career. They always refrained from taking the straightforward path, even at their last concert. Led Zeppelin always rose to a challenge, whether this was recording Presence in trying circumstances in the first place, all the way to their final bow.
On a broader note, the concert was the perfect send-off. With the show at the O2, Led Zeppelin proved they were more than strong enough to continue, yet instead, they admirably chose to say goodbye on their own terms and leave things on a high note.
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