The song that made ‘Coda’ the best Led Zeppelin album, according to Dave Grohl
Many people will study Led Zeppelin for the impact they made in bursting onto the rock scene, but for Dave Grohl, the real importance was in how they executed the big finish.
The early days were, of course, instrumental for their own reasons as they established the blistering force by which Led Zeppelin would come to be known, remembered, and regaled by. Through ‘Dazed and Confused’ on their eponymous 1969 debut, ‘Whole Lotta Love’ on Led Zeppelin II, and the iconic rock standard, ‘Stairway to Heaven’, on Led Zeppelin IV, it was clear this band was a force of darkness, but also a force for change.
That was still all when things were riding high, though, for just over a decade down the line from their thunderous emergence, those once brooding storm clouds gave way to torrential rain in the world of the band, after the sudden death of their drumming prodigy, John Bonham. Put simply, through the depths of grief and tragedy, they could be no more without their pioneering stick-smith.
So, Led Zeppelin was over, but fittingly, not without one swan song for the road, the result of which was their 1982 compilation album Coda, an eight-track smorgasbord of rejected and live songs, taken from over the course of their halcyon days. As a double-edged sword, it was a tear-jerking goodbye to a band who could never be heard again in their most effervescent form, but their final album also introduced them to a whole new legion of fans.
One of those was Grohl, who cited Coda as being one of his favourite and most influential albums of all time. “Led Zeppelin completely moulded the way I play the drums. No one can deny that band anything,” he explained in 2000, but in terms of their discography, there was a clear pecking order in his eyes.
“All their albums are great. I prefer Houses Of The Holy and In Through The Out Door to their first two, but Coda was the best, ‘cos ‘Bonzo’s Montreux’ was on it, John Bonham’s one drum symphony. I stayed up many a night working on that one. I’ll play it for you right now if you want!” he gushed, and from one drumming legend to another, the impact was transcendental.
Led Zeppelin would have no doubt inspired many fledgling bands and artists along on their paths, but in this context, it does seem like the baton being passed down the ages as a man like Bonham possessed the ability to steer the next great beacon of the following generation, namely the drummer of Nirvana.
Unfortunately, the lineages of Led Zeppelin and Nirvana seemed to reflect each other under all too tragic circumstances, given the loss of Kurt Cobain decades down the line meant Grohl too experienced that nuclear bomb of grief that ultimately served to tear his band apart. Suddenly, the echoes of Bonham’s drumming symphony were propelled all too clearly into his ears.
Maybe, subconsciously, this was what gave Grohl the strength to continue his journey in the form of the Foo Fighters later on, knowing that in cases like Led Zeppelin, there was too much of a good thing to waste, and while ‘Bonzo’s Montreux’ may have been the farewell, but really, it lit a flame for so much more.
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