Popoff - Led Zeppelin: song by song

Chateau Marmont, West Hollywood, May 1969.

The idea of adding these sixteen closely curated tracks was to nail a revised definition of all the albums, all the songs. Because, folks, there really is no such thing as all with Led Zeppelin. Where do you stop? Do you include pieces of studio jams later given names by fans? Every live cover? Every snippet of a live cover? Every officially released live song, even if a version was on one of the first nine records? Every alternate mix or demo version given a name by Jimmy and stuck on one of the reissues? It gets a little silly.

We could debate all this til the cows come home, but after deep consideration, heres what weve gone with: Led Zeppelin: All the Albums, All the Songs now includes every song, instrumental or not, given a name by Jimmy and included on the individual reissues that is not a close variant of an eventual LP track. We have also included every non-LP track officially released on The BBC Sessions, The Complete BBC Sessions, the (badly named or unnamed) two-part box sets, and DVD (this last would be Cmon EverybodyI know its a video package, but its official and the audio is of standalone audio quality).

Also included is every selection from the individual expanded reissues that is not an alternate version of another song. Arguably, Jennings Farm Blues breaks this rule, but it is substantially different enough from its sister track to stand on its own. So this book now covers, with those caveats, every song across all official studio albums, live albums, and compilations, save LA Drone on How the West Was Won, which, to be sure, is Jimmy naming something, but I think we can sensibly disqualify it for what it is: fourteen seconds of impromptu, live monotone guitar as introduction to Immigrant Song (there, I reviewed it!).

Additionally, beyond these qualifications, I couldnt resist one stunning live cover in As Long as I Have You and one unreleased studio track in Swan Song. The former qualifies, as it was a regular in the set, and although its a medley track it sits at the front of said medley structure and is returned to at the end. In other words, this isnt some old, rote blues embedded and briefly sampled all over the place. Besides, most of the old, rote blues Zeppelin played live are indeed addressed on the following pages as an official studio LP song, as a BBC session song, or as some sort of drift in and out with the bands fringe acoustic rarities. Swan Song gets in on the technicality that it was a named and defined piece of music in Jimmys mind.

Now, for those who dont know, this sort of project isnt out of character or out of my comfort zone. Apparently (and pathetically), by any tallies that Ive seen, Ive written more record reviews than anybody ever throughout all space and timecurrently about 7,900. (Im sure someone will have more one day, but for now, my to-do list includes trying to get an official Guinness record for that.)

Anyway, thats one reason that I suppose I was half-qualified to do this. Another reason is that one of my jobs, besides writing books, has been to comb album credits and listen very carefully to their corresponding recorded tracks for their instrumentation and other performancesbacking vocals, handclaps, tambourine, you name iton certain albums to help a nonprofit group in Canada mete out certain accruing performance royalties. Its a long story, but that training, along with trying to figure out where the damned differences were on these tracks that Jimmy was sticking on the deluxe editions companion discs well, that got me set down this path even before this project was proposed to me.

And once the idea was proposed, I still wasnt completely onboard, knowing that the songs had already been written about, in fact twice song-by-song (see ) and then, of course, elliptically across all the other books about Led Zeppelin. A good deal of information was already out there, much of it gleaned from the same few interviews the band ever gave where they actually talked about the songs (Ive never seen more column inches spent on playing livezzz). But as I started thinking about it, I thought, hey, it was time for another look, a new book, given new information that has arisen, given the unearthed music included on new deluxe releases, given any extra trivia I could pick up and disseminate from my own listening, and given the fact that, as an opinionated reviewer, I hell an gone just wanted to say my piece.