September 25th is a day we dedicate to LED ZEPPELIN tune, one is for remembering John Bonham who passed away on 25 September 1980 and the second is that it's my birthday :) An Happy Sad day!
Today's tune is for you John!
"The Rain Song" is a song by English rock band LED ZEPPELIN, and the second track from their fifth album "Houses Of The Holy", released in 1973.
"The Rain Song" is a ballad of over seven minutes in length. Guitarist Jimmy Page originally constructed the melody of this song at his home in Plumpton, England, where he had recently installed a studio mixing console. A new Vista model, it was partly made up from the Pye Mobile Studio which had been used to record the group's 1970 Royal Albert Hall performance and THE WHOs "Live At Leeds" album.
With a working title of "Slush", a reference to its easy listening simulated orchestral arrangement, Page was able to bring in a completed arrangement of the melody, for which singer Robert Plant composed the words. Plant ranks his vocal performance on the track as one of his best. The song also features a Mellotron played by John Paul Jones to add to the orchestral effect, while Page plays a Danelectro guitar.
George Harrison was reportedly the inspiration for "The Rain Song" when he made a comment to LED ZEPPELIN drummer John Bonham, about the fact that the group never wrote any ballads. In Light and Shade: Conversations with Jimmy Page, biographer Brad Tolinski quotes Page:
George Harrison was talking to Bonzo one evening and said, "The problem with you guys is that you never do ballads". I said, "I'll give him a ballad", and I wrote "Rain Song", which appears on "Houses Of The Holy. In fact, you'll notice I even quote 'Something' in the song's first two chords. However, there is some disagreement about exactly what was said by whom.
During LED ZEPPELIN concerts from late 1972 until 1975, the band played this song immediately following "The Song Remains The Same", presenting the songs in the same order as they appeared on the album. They organized their set list in this manner because Page used a Gibson EDS-1275 double-necked guitar for both songs: the top, 12-string neck for "The Song Remains The Same" and then switching to the bottom, 6-string neck for "The Rain Song". Often, the band would perform the song in the key of A major, a whole step up from the studio version (as heard on "The Song Remains The Same"). The song was dropped from the 1977 U.S. tour, but returned for LED ZEPPELINs 1979 concerts in Copenhagen, Denmark and at the Knebworth Music Festival, as well as their European tour in 1980. "The Rain Song" was the only song from "Houses Of The Holy" performed on the 1980 European tour. In this incarnation, Page again utilized the double-neck, the only known time he used that guitar solely for the 6-string portion without using the 12-string portion on a preceding song. For all live versions of the song, the orchestral string sounds were played by Jones on either the mellotron (1972–1975) or a Yamaha synthesizer (1979–1980), as LED ZEPPELIN never utilised a string section on-stage.
Today's tune "The Rain Song" is taken from "Houses Of The Holy", enjoy!
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