![]() Īt 3:42, the song shifts, and Page plays his first solo. His vocal sections are broken up by brief instrumental passages, and Page adds the first of several overdubbed guitar parts. After the long introductory riff is played four times, Plant begins singing. Drummer John Bonham and bassist John Paul Jones then establish a driving hard rock rhythm that persists throughout the song. "Achilles Last Stand" opens with Page's Moroccan-influenced solo guitar arpeggios, which Led Zeppelin biographers have described as haunting and mysterious. Problems playing this file? See media help. Within he also relates his travels in Greece, Spain, Montreux, Jersey, and California, as well as what one internalizes from travel. The Atlas Mountains, which span Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia, are also referenced, but through a nice twist, the lyric referring directly to Atlas instead, the god who held the earth on his shoulders. Group biographer Martin Popoff described Plant's lyrics:Īlbion is a Blake reference, but it's also an ancient name for what would become England. Plant was unable to walk for a year, and recorded much of Presence in a wheelchair the working title of "Achilles Last Stand" was "The Wheelchair Song". The title is an ironic reference to Plant's August 1975 automobile accident, in which he severely injured his ankle, as Achilles was brought down by an arrow to his calcaneal tendon. Īlthough "Achilles Last Stand" uses mythological imagery drawn from William Blake's Albion, the Atlas myth and the Greek hero Achilles, its lyrics centre around the group's travels during their exile. North African and Middle Eastern music had inspired earlier Led Zeppelin songs, such as " Friends", " Four Sticks", " No Quarter", and "Kashmir". Page heard local music, which influenced his guitar parts on "Achilles Last Stand". Jimmy Page and Robert Plant went to Morocco in June 1975, where they developed material for their next album. This is alluded to in the song's opening lines: "It was an April morning when they told us we should go, and as I turned to you, you smiled at me, how could we say no". In order to remain tax exiles, the group members needed to limit their time in the UK. ![]() Page called it his favourite Led Zeppelin song in several interviews, and considers its guitar solo on a par with his " Stairway to Heaven" solo.īackground and lyrics The Death of Achilles, brown ink and oil by Alexander Rothaug (1870–1946)Īfter their 1975 US tour and London concerts, Led Zeppelin took a break from performing. The band featured it during concerts from 1977 to 1980, and a 1979 live performance is included on the Led Zeppelin DVD (2003). The song received mainly positive reviews from music critics, with some comparing "Achilles Last Stand" to other Zeppelin songs such as " Kashmir". At roughly ten-and-a-half minutes, it is one of the group's longest studio recordings and one of their most complex, with interwoven sections and multiple, overdubbed guitar parts. Guitarist Jimmy Page and singer Robert Plant began writing the song during the summer of 1975 and were influenced by Eastern music, mythology, and exposure to diverse cultures during their travels. “So let’s put it this way: Whether it was the first album or whether it was ‘Since I’ve Been Loving You’ or ‘Tea for One’, whenever Led Zeppelin do a blues, it’s not like anybody else doing the blues." Achilles Last Stand" is a song by the English rock group Led Zeppelin released as the opening track on their seventh studio album, Presence (1976). It’s like, ‘I’m coming at you – and I’m gonna get you!’ And that’s why I love him. “It’s like Howlin’ Wolf: When you hear Wolf, he’s not messing about. How did Zeppelin’s treatment of the blues differ from, say, John Mayall’s and Eric Clapton’s three years before? “Well, it’s the atmosphere and it’s the attitude that’s created on something like Muddy Waters’ ‘Standing Around Crying,’” Page says. But it needed to have that Led Zeppelin character put into it.” There was gonna be a definite showcase of the blues. “It was very intentional what the first album was gonna be. There was gonna be a definite showcase of the blues Jimmy Page It was very intentional what the first album was gonna be. And also ‘Babe I’m Gonna Leave You.’ All of these things. But it is! If you have the harmonica playing that riff, you know that it’s blues all right. “As far as the material for the first Zeppelin album goes,” Page recalls, “I definitely knew that I really wanted to do ‘I Can’t Quit You Baby.’ ‘Dazed and Confused,’ too. It’s impossible to overstate the impact of that first Led Zeppelin album.
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