Houses Of The Holy, the fifth Led Zeppelin album and the primary to not be titled with a quantity, reached its fiftieth anniversary on Tuesday. To mark the event, Jimmy Page shared “The Seasons,” a beforehand unreleased six-and-a-half-minute instrumental demo that finally advanced into “The Rain Song.”
Notes from Page on this demo and the Houses period:
My unique thought for the opening tracks for ‘Houses of the Holy’ was {that a} quick overture can be a rousing instrumental introduction with layered electrical guitars that might segue in to ‘The Seasons’, later to be titled ‘The Rain Song’. Again there can be a contrasting acoustic guitar instrumental motion with mellotron that would result in the primary vocal of the album and the primary verse of the track.
‘The Seasons’ was a memo to myself as a reminder of the sequence of the track and varied concepts I’d had for it in its embryonic stage. I’d labored on it over one night at house. During the routining of the overture now titled ‘The Plumpton and Worcester Races’, the half time part was born and the overture formed in to the track, ‘The Song Remains The Same’. These rehearsals had been accomplished in Puddle Town on the River Piddle in Dorset, UK.
The first set of recordings had been accomplished at Olympic Studios with George Chkiantz.
We then got here to document at Stargroves, Sir Mick Jagger’s nation house, and, like Headley Grange, with the Rolling Stones recording truck.
‘The Song Remains The Same’ was performed on a Fender 12 string, the identical one used on Becks Bolero, with my trusty Les Paul number one on overdubs in an ordinary turning. The ‘Rain Song’ was an unorthodox tuning on acoustic and electrical guitars. On dwell reveals, it turned a work-out characteristic for the double neck.
Hear “The Seasons” under, and once you’re accomplished with that, blast “Over The Hills And Far Away” to have fun the arrival of spring.