Let's Talk About The Led Zeppelin Epic Track- "Carouselambra"

(i think that they'd do a GREAT version of it)

Emaj -> Bmaj [7th fret]
Dmaj -> Amaj [5th fret]
Cmaj -> Gmaj [3rd fret]

"Take of the fruit, but guard the seeeeed..."

Sisters of the way-side bide their time in quiet peace,
Await their place within the ring of calm;
Still stand to turn in seconds of release,
Await the call they know may never come.
In times of lightness, no intruder dared upon
To jeopardize the course, upset the run;
And all was joy and hands were raised toward the sun
As love in the halls of plenty overrun.

Still in their bliss unchallenged mighty feast,
Unending dances shadowed on the day.
Within their walls, their daunting formless keep,
Preserved their joy and kept their doubts at bay.
Faceless legions stood in readiness to weep,
Just turn a coin, bring order to the fray;
And everything is soon no sooner thought than deed,
But no one seemed to question in anyway.

How keen the storied hunter's eye prevails upon the land
To seek the unsuspecting and the weak;
And powerless the fabled sat, too smug to lift a hand
Toward the foe that threatened from the deep.
Who cares to dry the cheeks of those who saddened stand
Adrift upon a sea of futile speech?
And to fall to fate and make the 'status plan'
*** But no one there had heaven within their reach.
***Singin"...
Where was your word, where did you go?
Where was your helping, where was your bow? Bow.
Dull is the armour, cold is the day.
Hard was the journey, dark was the way. Way.
I heard the word; I couldn't stay. Oh.
I couldn't stand it another day, another day,
Another day, another day.

Touched by the timely coming,
Roused from the keeper's sleep,
Release the grip, throw down the key.

Held now within the knowing,
Rest now within the peace.
Take of the fruit, but guard the seed.

They had to stay!

Held now within the knowing,
Rest now within the beat.
Take of the fruit, but guard the seed...
*** Take of the fruit, but guard the seed...

Oh, Lord...

I def. need to re-listen, but I kind of remember it sounding like Plant was singing in an empty pool...

I love the way the first section of the tune empties out like rapids into the brighter, slower section. The ending of the song (when it gets up-beat again, with those ascending Moog lines) always seemed a bit curious to me, though...

"In The Evening"

If nothing else in this crazy world, you can be sure of this.

Otherwise, the track is fair. I can't really single it out as something special in the Zep catalogue.

Now if you want to talk "Won Ton Song", I would be game!

"All My Love" was written for his dead son, Karac. (A picture of Karac can be seen in the spinning wheel on LZ III.)

I've always loved "Carouselambra," but the best song from these sessions wasn't released until Coda - "Wearing And Tearing." Plant's first solo single, "Burning Down One Side," had a similarly slurred/buried vocal to these tracks - certainly preferable to the munchkinrock of "The Song Remains The Same."

"Achilles Last Stand" is my ZepEpic of choice.

I reversed that as "Plant's man-love" and then all of a sudden Zep became the most boundary-busting group of all time.

"Carouselambra" (10:28) may not only mark the end of Zeppelin and their epic tracks, BUT may just be one of the last long epic/prog tracks on rock records in general.

After this, Rush did a few. ("Camera Eye" and "Natural Science") and Guns put a few epics on the Illusion LP's ("Coma" and "Estranged") but "Carouselambra" may have been the beginning of the end for the 10 minute album cut.

http://www.geocities.com/jpjkeys/yamahagx1.html

If it had only been a four or five-minute excuse for an awesome synth riff, it would have been one of their finest moments, yeah.

More about those post-"Carouselambra" epics: Steve Miller, of all people, filled an entire LP side with a single song as late as 1981. Possibly the last of the side-long tracks done by a fairly mainstream artist with NO prog-leanings whatsoever?

Coda - now there's an album I don't pull out enough!

http://home.att.net/~chuckayoub/jimmy_page_biography.jpg

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_Concert_Hall

Really? I was just listening to it last night and it occurred to me that the dirgey middle section was basically a blueprint for more than half of the 4AD catalogue of the '80s.

Anyway I was disappointed that none of the live video stuff I have of them included Carouselambra, including the bootlegged entirety of the '79 Knebworth gig. But considering everything on that double DVD, it's like...not exactly missed.

Hurting accused me of hyperbole in reference to them and I will still hold my palm up in honest sobriety and tell you they were as good as music ever gets. I still feel that though some music probably matches them, nothing can surpass them. My feelings about them are deeper than the Beatles at this point. And I don't care if that offends people.

They never played it live - they were apparently working on an arrangement in rehearsals for the US tour that would never be. Page and Plant did incorporate the "dirgey middle section" into another number in mid-'90s concerts. Can't remember which one now, but a glance through one of those Dave Lewis books would set me right.

This is all a bit weird for me because just last night I had a dream about the person who first played me Carouselambra about ten years ago. Prior to that moment, I wouldn't have even considered getting into Led Zeppelin over my dead body.

i still believe that this is an amazing track

it's pretty sick

Surely there's someone else besides me out there who hates this track. That synth riff sounds like some TV sports show theme for a bicycle race.

I love the part where it goes WAAA-WAA-WAA-DA WAAA-WAA-WAA-DA WAAA-WAA-WAA-DA WAAA-WAA-WAA-DA.

I'm two minutes in, and so far it's much better than I remembered it.

Does Jimmy Page actually do anything on this track? The guitar break at 3:30 appears to be mostly synths

The breakdown's pretty great. Not so sure about coming out of it directly into the credits sequence for an Open University tutorial

That was pretty epic, if not exactly a bag of hooks.

this is the first Led Zeppelin song I ever remember hearing. Taped it off some classic rock station in the mid-80s and became a huge fan for many years.

That dirge-y part in Carouselambra is still one of my favorite Jimmy Page moments. There is something spooky about that riff and his tone. I can't put a finger on why it hits me that way, but it always has... since I was a kid.

I was going through this thread listening to some of their songs and I was struck by how awesome the beginning of In the Evening is. I would love a whole song of just that droney beginning part going on and on. When the song kicks in, it is pretty satisfying, though. The chorus sucks... the verses make for a better hook. Probably could have been one of my favorite songs if the chorus had been different, and Plant had toned it down a bit.

I was going through this thread listening to some of their songs and I was struck by how awesome the beginning of In the Evening is. I would love a whole song of just that droney beginning part going on and on.

If memory serves, one of the In Through The Out Door bootlegs has an extended version of that beginning.

"Fool in the Rain" is also pretty amazing. Samba, Led Zeppelin style.

This is the only good song on In Through The Door, IMO. Zep were past their prime by this point, and all the usual middle aged rock star problems. It's hard to say if they woulda got their shit together if Bonham hadn't died.

"In the Evening" is their best side opener and best song.

I'm inclined to agree! love that bit at the beginning of the guitar solo where it sounds like Page is falling down the stairs with a plugged-in guitar

Garage door opener guitar.

My favorite very late period Zep track remains this one:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XBIiF6Q03XE

otm

IIIIN THE EEEEEVVVENNIIIIING

I love this song.

The Phil Collins memoir goes into a lot of defensive detail as to what went wrong at Live Aid.

funny, but you know thinking about it he probably got a lot of blame for a disaster that wasn't his fault at all.

Absolutely. The story he tells is that he got a call from his pal Plant, with whom he had been recording and performing, asking if he'd back him at Live Aid. He says sure. Some time goes by and Plant casually mentions that Page would be there, too. Phil figures, um, OK, fine. And then JPJ shows up, and Phil realizes he's in the middle of something bigger than what he expected. Except that as he tells it the closer to the reunion they get, the more his pal Plant reverts to LZ form and acts like an asshole. Meanwhile, Phil, consummate professional at the peak of his powers, keeps wanting to rehearse and Page and Plant keep putting it off. And then somehow Tony Thompson gets involved, and Phil keeps trying to work the parts out with him, explaining that double drumming takes a bit of planning, but Thompson (like Page, a chemical mess) keeps blowing him off. So the day comes around, Phil is grouchy, the entire band is unrehearsed, Page and Thompson are playing like shit, Plant is singing like shit, but Phil keeps getting a lot of screen time, and as the new guy takes a lot of blame for the absolutely shit show of their performance.

I know the wheels are falling off from early on in the set. I can’t hear Robert clearly from where I’m sat, but I can hear enough to know that he’s not on top of his game. Ditto Jimmy. I don’t remember playing Rock And Roll, but obviously I did. But I do remember an awful lot of time where I can hear what Robert decries as ‘knitting’: fancy drumming. And if you can find the footage (the Zeppelin camp have done their best to scrub it from the history books), you can see me miming, playing the air, getting out of the way lest there be a trainwreck. If I’d known it was to be a two-drummer band, I would have removed myself from proceedings long before I got anywhere near Philadelphia.

Onstage I don’t take my eyes off Tony Thompson. I’m glued to him. I’m having to follow – he’s taking the heavy-handed lead and has opted to ignore all my advice. Putting myself in his shoes, he’s probably thinking, "This is the beginning of a new career. John Bonham isn’t around any more. They’re gonna want someone. This could be the start of a Led Zeppelin reunion. And I don’t need this English fuck in my way."

I’m not judging him, god rest his soul. Thompson was a fantastic drummer. but it was very uncomfortable, and if I could have left that stage, I would have left, halfway through Stairway... if not earlier. But imagine the coverage of that? Walking off during The Second Coming? Who the fuck does Collins think he is? Geldof really would have had something to swear about.

After what seems like an eternity, we finish. I’m thinking, ‘My god, that was awful. The sooner this is over, the better."

There’s one more moment of horror. backstage, MTV VJ Alan Hunter is waiting to interview Led Zeppelin. The sweat still damp on our brows, the bad taste still ripe in my mouth, we gather outside the caravan of doom. Back in the studio, he’s teed up the interview with the words: "On a day for reunions, probably the most anticipated is the Led Zeppelin reunion. Now right here, an interview with the reunited members..."

Hunter starts asking questions, and it’s quickly obvious that nobody is taking him seriously. Robert and Jimmy are being difficult, giving vague, cocky answers to straight questions; John Paul Jones is still quieter than a church mouse. I feel sorry for Hunter. He’s live on air, a worldwide audience is waiting with bated breath, and these guys are making him look like an idiot.

In a shutting stable door after the horse has bolted style, Led Zeppelin won’t let the performance be included on the official Live Aid DVD. Because, of course, they were ashamed of it. And I find that I am usually the one blamed for it. It couldn’t possibly be the holy Led Zep who were at fault. It was that geezer who came over on Concorde who wasn’t rehearsed. He was the culprit. That show-off.