3. Led Zeppelin - IV

As I turned from an eighth grader into a freshman in high school I met older classmates who had musical talents.  I was introduced to music I hadn't really paid attention to before because it wasn't on the popular radio station, my sister wasn't playing it, or it was of the 1960s and 1970s.  While in McKenzie's creative writing class I met Jon who was in a band that practiced in his parents' garage.  My friend Sherri and I were invited to listen to them play, along with their other friends, and we lowly freshmen sat on the concrete and listened with rapture as "Stairway to Heaven" was sung into the early evening in central Mississippi.  It didn't take me long to switch gears, tuning into the "Classic Rock" radio station, Z106, and following Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, The Doors, and The Rolling Stones.  It all began with Led Zeppelin's "Stairway to Heaven" though.  I did discover my sister had "The Fourth Album" (aka Led Zeppelin IV) and I promptly borrowed it.  When she moved for graduate school the CD moved with her, but for a while it was all I played, and I learned the lyrics to "Stairway..." so completely, trying my hardest to sing like Robert Plant, to sing alongside my Freshman year crush in my little daydreams.

There’s a sign on the wall but she wants to be sure
‘Cause you know sometimes words have two meanings.
In a tree by the brook, there’s a songbird who sings,
Sometimes all of our thoughts are misgiven.
Ooh, it makes me wonder,
Ooh, it makes me wonder.

After I got over my obsession with "Stairway..." I moved on to "Misty Mountain Hop" because it shifted with my mood from a romantic interest into a stronger rhythm that demanded independence and self-reflection to be honest with oneself.  Who cares what anyone else thinks?

Why don’t you take a good look at yourself and describe what you see,
And Baby, Baby, Baby, do you like it?
There you sit, sitting spare like a book on a shelf rustin’
Ah, not trying to fight it.
You really don’t care if they’re coming, oh, oh,
I know that it’s all a state of mind, ooh.

I always think of the Mississippi River when I hear the word "levee."  I think of the great wide flat delta farmlands and the levee line alongside the Mississippi rolling down the western side of the state.  So "When the Levee Breaks" through its intro until the first verse imagines a scene of rain, Autumn's slow cold rain comes to mind and my grandmother's stories about farmers' concerns about the high waters in the river, or about the Mississippi River Flood of 1927.

If it keeps on rainin', levee's goin' to break.
If it keeps on rainin', levee's goin' to break.
When the levee breaks I'll have no place to stay...

"Black Dog" begs to be rocked out to, hips swinging and arms flailing in that Woodstock fashion.  I started really coming into  my own with this song and others like it on the classic rock station, tuning in for Tunes Til Two on Saturdays and watching movies about the '60s and '70s.  I wanted to identify with the people of the year I was born, '76.  "Black Dog" is a sexy song with the way Robert Plant sings about the kind of woman he wants:

All I ask for when I pray, steady rollin’ woman gonna come my way.
Need a woman gonna hold my hand, won’t tell me no lies, make me a happy man.

Also, visit the Wikipedia articles on Led Zeppelin IV and Led Zeppelin, in addition to the band's website.