The Four Symbols. Review on Led Zeppelin IV - Led Zeppelin

In 1971 Led Zeppelin returned to the environs of HEADLY GRANGE (an old English Castle), they took along with them The Rolling Stones mobile studio to get away from the drudgery of recording in THE NEW ISLAND studios and in this place they literally re defined themselves.

Ideas flowed freely inside the lawns and gardens of the GRANGE and the main work of the album was done here. After the initial work was completed here they took the master tapes to do overdubs at the ISLAND STUDIOS. The end result was with the delayed release of this album they came out with their greatest album ever, the 3 albums previous to this were LZ1, LZ2 & L3 but breaking away from tradition (and the irate studio/record company executives) the band didn’t name their album anything, their fans dubbed it the FOUR Symbols, LZ IV, Zofo, The Runes. (to this day not one of the band members have clarified what the album should be called).

THE COVER:

The Cover consisted of FOUR SYMBOLS each representing a member of the BAND to form the title of the album. Each member chose his own

John Bonham (the drummer) chose his from a book of runes, which consisted of 3 linked circles (said to represent THE MAN-WIFE-CHILD trilogy).

John Paul Jones’(The Bassist) symbol a circle with 3 triangles interlocked within) came from the same book and is meant to represent CONFIDENCE & COMPETENCE (he sure is that).

Robert Plant(Vocals) FEATHER in a circle design was his own, inspired by the ancient MU civilization.

Jimmy Page’s (Lead Guitar) mysterious and often misinterpreted symbol which has often been pronounced “ZOSO”, was also his own work.

The group could hardly have known at that time what an impact these SYMBOLS would have on their legion of fans and add to their legend of being into occult and mysticism and black magic.

The original album cover was a gatefold cover the outer one depicting an old man with a bundle of sticks and in the background a barely decipherable OXFAM poster hanging from the wall amidst urban decay.

The inner fold up depicted the TAROT CARD of THE HERMIT(it’s the sign of VIRGO) and the lyrics of Stairway to heaven were printed in the original sleeve.

The ultimate perfectionist and the main inspiration Jimmy Page was an accomplished Guitarist and had previously played for THE YARDBIRDS with John Paul Jones and it was the demise of this band which led to the formation of Led Zeppellin (a name given to the band by KEITH MOON of the WHO who after first hearing their sound predicted that they would sink like a Zeppellin (the air ships) filled with LEAD, the band dropped the A in LEAD and the name stuck) and they certainly didn’t sink, instead soared to heights which only the Beatles and Pink Floyd managed to acheive speccially in the USA as with the other two bands which were also BRITISH, the group introduced a new kind of sound which ultimately resulted into the genre of HEAVY METAL

In this album they experiment freely and voila each experiment comes out with flying colors, it also has the greatest rock anthem ever in Stairway to Heaven. But beginning with BLACK DOG & ROCK & ROLL (two instantly recognizable LZEP songs), my favorites are:

Battle of Evermore (The tune was written by Jimmy age while experimenting with John Paul Jones Mandolin one night in the Grange, Robert Plant came up with the lyrics which was inspired by a book on Scottish Wars he was reading at the time) and The Battle of Evermore sung in a fashion of a storyteller from yore describing the Battle is a stirring rendition in the fashion of the bards of yore.

Misty Mountain Hop (inspired by Lord of the Rings and other writings from JRR Tolkein).

Four Sticks – The song is so called because Bonzo (as John Bonham was popularly known to all), he employed the use of 4 drum sticks to create the relentless rhythm song.

Going to California – a great acoustic song!! Heavily inspired by Joni Mitchell and the earthquakes of that famous place. Ideal to describe the 70’s scene in and around Venice beach which still is considered to be a Hippie Hangout. The mention of TOOK MY CHANCES ON A BIG JET PLANE (refers to a CHILLUM or BONG) for smoking marijuana/ hash, in it. The song also of the unrelented search for the perfect woman and during concerts Plant would often ad lib (it’ still infinitely hard) to find the perfect woman i.e.

Stairway to Heaven – THE BIG ONE, it has enjoyed mythical status and is the anthem of many a generation. A lot of people bought the album because the band management refused to release the song as a single and this influenced the sales. It remains the most demanded song on the Fm and an interesting fact on the 20th anniversary of the release of the song it was announced via US radio stations that an astonishing 2,84,700 radio plays had been clocked up (in terms of minutes it means 44 years of solid rock back to back!!)

THE LEVEE BREAKS – here the genius of Bonzo is truly on display the thumping crunchy sound he achieved is the envy of many an inspiring drummer. How he came up with the song is another great story but not to be told in this review.

The combination of different musical inspirations and melody gave this Led Zeppellin Album a very refreshing and hard rocking feel and the beauty of it is that no two songs are alike. The more listen to this album the more you feel that if John Bonham had lived a bit more they would have really broken barriers in the way music was arranged and performed live.

Postscript

A great piece of music history for a musician to aspire to, I think out of the many covers that other bands have done of the various songs of the album the one which reaches near perfection is the rendition of “THE BATTLE OF EVERMORE” , performed for the soundtrack of cult hit movie THE SINGLES, which was performed by the LOVEMONGERS who featured Annie & Nancy Wilson of HEART. This song is so difficult that even Zep just performed it once live on stage with JONES taking up the challenge of doing the dual vocals task.