LED ZEPPELIN - BRING IT ON HOME

'Watch that train rollin' down the track'



The closing track on 'Led Zeppelin II'. A step along the way, a definite signpost of the progression of the group. Written by blues legend Willie Dixon, the earliest known recording is by Sonny Boy Williamson II in 1963, where Dixon is correctly credited as sole songwriter.

The original recording sessions began in LA at Mystic Studios during the first week of May 1969, when the basic structure was recorded alongside 'Moby Dick' and 'The Lemon Song. The following week Zeppelin were in Vancouver and on May10 th overdubbed Robert's vocals and harmonica at R & D Studios during the day before performing at the PNE Agrodome that evening. 

Led Zeppelin also recorded an alternative take of the middle incendiary section during the bit by bit recording sessions for 'Led Zeppelin II', stunning evidence of this being a live in the studio jam from Atlantic Studios, New York on July 24th that appears on the deluxe edition of Coda. 

Three days after playing two sets in Central Park, they laid this down before heading to West Allis, Wisconsin for the 

Mid-West Rock Festival.

Anyway, by August everything was brought together and the LP was assembled and mixed during the last days of the month in New York by Jimmy and Eddie Kramer.

Now 'Bring It On Home' had another prime example of Jimmy's burgeoning guitar army, adding wave upon wave of harmony guitars to the lift-off riff before Bonzo enters with two depth charge snare hits. There's no solo, just some power riffing.

Then they added an intro and a coda, both slow understated shuffling blues rhythms, as the original guys from the Delta would have played it. Robert adds some nice harmonica licks but his vocals are mumbled and slurred, crudely aping Sonny Boy Williamson II's vocal style. And then they compounded it by crediting it as a Page/Plant composition. Oh dear. It wasn't until 1987 that Willie Dixon got his due and sole songwriting credit, alongside recompense for Robert stealing his lyrics from You Need Love for Whole Lotta Love. Since then it's (rightly) been a Dixon composition.

Live, the earliest version we had is as an encore at the recently discovered new audience tape of the middle of three Winterland shows that closed the fourth US Tour, then

as one of the numerous encores at the legendary Royal Albert Hall show on January 9th 1970, it's arrangement giving rise to a fantastic adrenalin fuelled 3 way guitar-drum-harmonica call and response jam. Joyfully we have this on 'DVD'.

The only other captured performance is from Copenhagen on February 28th, again as an encore. For the 5th US and 6th US Tours it followed the opening blast, staying in the first 3 or 4 in the set until the tour ended with the two outstanding Madison Square Garden shows on September 19th. We have by now 24 live versions on bootleg, and the only show its' omitted from is the Honolulu September 6th gig.

A live tour de force, the duels are extended plus we have Robert getting the crowd involved, as the 'Live On Blueberry Hill' bootleg will attest.  But come 1971 and the set was revamped with 'Since I've Been Loving You' and 'Black Dog' brought in to follow the openers. From then on we only have 3 bootlegged versions - Belfast March 5th '71 (3rd encore), Nassau Coliseum June 14th '72 (4th encore) and L A Forum June 25th '72 (5th encore) - and that's it. Apart from Jimmy's incendiary riff used as a link between 'Celebration Day' and 'Black Dog' for the 9th US Tour, the mass of studio harmony overdubs covered by Jonesy, sometimes using his 5-string bass.

Post Zeppelin, Robert reverted to a blues shuffle/swing version for his Honeydrippers club gigs in 1981, and Page and Plant played the truncated middle section on both the Unledded and Walking Into Clarkesdale Tours.

Jimmy also played it with the Black Crowes, a perfect candidate for the multi-guitar set up

Never a candidate for a single, there are a couple of oddities as the b-side to Heartbreaker (Italy) and Livin' Lovin' Maid (Turkey) plus, you guessed it, at least one Polish Postcard Flexi.

For most of us, the best two live versions you could imagine have been released officially! The 'DVD' gives us the Royal Albert Hall performance and the (probably) last live version is caught on the outstanding 'How The West Was Won' 3CD set.