Led Zeppelin – Untitled

The self titled ‘Led Zeppelin’ referred to as Led Zeppelin IV, I believe came out much too quickly. By this time they were so huge, spending tons of money, flying their own Jet, excess after excess and this album has that feel. One only need to look at the image on the album cover, a man burdened under the labor of his work, to see the strain Led Zeppelin was now under, both as a band, and a corporation. And don’t be offended by that word “corporation,” hundreds of people’s lives were dependent on this group putting out more and more and better and better material. But better material comes from reflection, the reflection of where one has been and the direction one finds themselves headed. For the first time in their history, they were not at the helm of their future.

"Battle Of Evermore," "Going To California," and "Stairway To Heaven" were the stand out numbers from this release, and "Stairway To Heaven" was being played nonstop on every radio station across America. Any song [even a great song] over played as much as "Stairway To Heaven" is sure sign that things are not going to last. The band was in need of a serious vacation from not only themselves, the road, the recording industry, but from drugs, alcohol and the pomposity they were becoming.

Some fun facts regarding "Stairway To Heaven" ... At the time of writing this review:

"Stairway" is still played 4,203 times a year by the country's sixty-seven largest AOR (album oriented rock) radio stations, according to trade magazine MONDAY MORNING REPLAY. How many times has it been played since it was released? ASCAP, the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers, refuses to release exact figures, but here's a rough guess: Figure that on each AOR station in America, the song was played five times a day during its first three months of existence; twice a day for the next nine months; once a day for the next four years; and two to three times a week for the next fifteen years. There are roughly six hundred AOR and "classic" rock stations in the U.S., which means that "Stairway" has been broadcast a minimum of 2,874 times. At eight minutes per spin, roughly 23 million minutes -- almost forty-four solid years -- have been devoted to the song ... so far.

On January 23, 1991, John Sebastian, owner and general manager of KLSK FM in Albuquerque, New Mexico, played the song for twenty-four solid hours to inaugurate a format change to classic rock. It played more than two hundred times, eliciting hundreds of angry calls and letters. Police showed up with guns drawn, once after a listener reported that the deejay had apparently suffered a heart attack, later because of suspicion that -- this being eight days into the Gulf War -- the radio station had been taken hostage by terrorists dispatched by Zeppelin freak Saddam Hussein. Weirdest of all, lots of listeners didn't move the dial. "Turns out a lot of people listened to see when we would finally stop playing it."

"Stairway" went elevator in January 1990, when it was added to the Muzak playlist in a solo harp version. According to Chuck Walker, manager of Environmental Channel Programming, the song is delivered directly to customers via the Direct Broadcast Satellite service (DBS). Unlike the original, the Muzak version, arranged and recorded to provide an "uplifting, productive atmosphere" and "counteract the worker-fatigue curve in the office environment," is not at the top of anyone's list. Walker speculates that the song has been played only fifteen times, because even in its toned-down harp version, it calls too much attention to itself.

The idea for each member of the band to choose a personal emblem for the cover was Page's. In an interview he gave in 1977, he recalled: "After all this crap that we'd had with the critics, I put it to everybody else that it'd be a good idea to put out something totally anonymous. At first I wanted just one symbol on it, but then it was decided that since it was our fourth album and there were four of us, we could each choose our own symbol. I designed mine and everyone else had their own reasons for using the symbols that they used."

Page stated that he designed his own symbol and has never publicly disclosed any reasoning behind it. It has been argued that his symbol appeared as early as 1557 to represent Saturn. The symbol is sometimes referred to as "ZoSo", though Page has explained that it was not in fact intended to be a word at all. Page was known to be a devotee of Aleister Crowley and his sign resembles a magical sigil. The first three parts of the sigil or symbol also resemble the word "Zos" as found in the magical philosophy of Crowley's associate Austin Osman Spare known as 'Zos vel Thanatos'.

Bassist John Paul Jones' symbol, which he chose from Rudolf Koch's Book of Signs, is a single circle intersecting three vesica pisces (a triquetra). It is intended to symbolise a person who possesses both confidence and competence.

Drummer John Bonham's symbol, the three interlocking (Borromean) rings, was picked by the drummer from the same book. It represents the triad of mother, father and child, but, inverted, it also happens to be the logo for Ballantine beer.

Singer Robert Plant's symbol of a feather within a circle was his own design, being based on the sign of the supposed Mu civilization.

Sandy Denny's symbol of three downward-pointing equilateral triangles.
A fifth, smaller symbol chosen by guest vocalist Sandy Denny represents her contribution to "The Battle of Evermore"; the figure, composed of three equilateral triangles, appears on the inner sleeve of the LP, serving as an asterisk.

The inside illustration, entitled "The Hermit" and credited to Barrington Colby MOM, was influenced by the design of the card of the same name in the Rider-Waite tarot deck. This character was later portrayed by Page himself in Led Zeppelin's concert film, The Song Remains the Same (1976). The inner painting is also referred to as View in Half or Varying Light and was sold at auction under that name in 1981. Varied versions of the artwork within the album exist. Some versions depict a longhaired and bearded supplicant climbing at the base of the mountain, while some others do not show the six pointed star within the hermit's lantern. If the inside cover of the album is held vertically against a mirror, a man's face can be seen hidden in the rocks below the hermit. Speculation exists that the face is actually that of a black dog.

The typeface for the lyrics to "Stairway to Heaven", printed on the inside sleeve of the album, was Page's contribution. He found it in an old arts and crafts magazine called The Studio which dated from the late 19th century. He thought the lettering was interesting and arranged for someone to create a whole alphabet.

Robert Plant wrote the song "Goin' To California about Joni Mitchell. Plant was “in love” with the Canadian songwriter. He also wrote of his worry about working in the state that goes through earthquakes. There was a minor earthquake while mixing the untitled fourth Zeppelin album, which featured the song in question.

*** The Fun Facts: The album photo is that of a 69 year old Wiltshire roof-thatcher from the 1890’s, his name is Lot Long. The man’s identity was discovered in 2023, when the Wiltshire Museum purchased a photo album containing the black & white (sepia image) image for approximately $515. As for how that photo ended up on the album cover: Legend has it that Robert Plant, Led Zeppelin’s vocalist, and his bandmate Jimmy Page were in an antique shop in Pangbourne, a village about 50 miles west of London along the River Thames, where the two spotted and used the colorized version of the photograph as the album artwork; with most fans thinking that the album art to a painting. Because the photographer, Mr. Farmer, was also a teacher, one plausible theory is that he used the picture to teach colorizing to his students. One of those versions may have ended up in a frame in an antique shop. The colorized version used by Led Zeppelin seems to have been lost to time.

Review by Jenell Kesler