LED ZEPPELIN - FOR YOUR LIFE

 'Hear her cry for mercy, in the City of the Damned  - 
uh oh baby, Damned'

November 20th 1975 was the date, and Led Zeppelin were drawing their time working on the new LP to a close. After the initial burst of tour rehearsal energy in Musicland Studios brought forth Achilles Last Stand, Royal Orleans and Hots On For Nowhere, the second week saw Led Zeppelin drawing deeper into half finished riffs and ideas. 

For Your Life is taken at a deliberately slow, solid sleaze bump and grind pace, interwoven with some lovely and intricate rhythm section cross patterns and time shifts. 

Now the screaming and fist banging has subsided, Led Zeppelin explore the underbelly of not only their musical creativity but (lyrically and figuratively at least) their collective experiences. If Sick Again took a peek behind the dressing room and Riot House doors, it did so in a wagging finger but tongue in cheek way - 'said you done since you were thirteen then you giggle as you heave and sigh' for example. 

It's the Circus camping on the village green, the bright lights attracting innocent moths to the flame of excitement. Here today, another town tomorrow so let loose and then back to reality. 

For Your Life is delving much deeper and much darker, Robert is understandably through with not the circus but the longer term hangers on and the problems and addictions they leave in their wake. Suitably, Jimmy drags a growling sludge-groove out of his rarely recorded lake placid blue Fender Stratocaster, swooping and clawing at the figures over a restrained but always ready to explode rhythm section.

I've always loved his tremelo work, the dissonance and tempo defying blats of sound. Cadillac by The Firm has always stood out, in alive setting in particular, and of course the strident descending riff and call and response vibrancy on In The Evening. 

In turn all knowing and cynical, it for me is genius. The outtake dated November 20th on the companion disc has an even more desperate, wrung out guitar solo and different and more obscured lyrics from Robert as the tale unfolds. 

Coming after the exuberance of Achilles Last Stand it brings us back to Earth but is strident enough to keep the energy levels high. Referring in part to For Your Life, Robert commented the elpee has 'some of Led Zeppelin's hottest moments - agitated, uncomfortable, druggy, pained'. He's not far wrong.

It never made it to the live Zeppelin stage. Sick Again was preferred as a vehicle of tour carnage tales in 1977 and 1979. Who knows if it would have been given the nod for the 80/81 proposed shows...

Post Zeppelin Jimmy toyed with it during soundchecks in Japan with David Coverdale (instrumentally of course), but undoubtedly it was a surprise and triumph at the O2 Tribute gig. Detuning gave it even more grunge, but Jason gets it spot on and the spirit of Led Zeppelin really does fly high here. It fits right in, at a great place in the set too. Inspired stuff.