This blistering track from Led Zeppelin's second album contains some of Robert Plant's most lascivious lyrics, culled from the blues. It's not poetry, but he gets his point across quite effectively, letting the girl know that he's yearning, and ready to give her all of his love - every inch.
Plant's lyrics are based on a 1962 Muddy Waters song written by Willie Dixon called "You Need Love," where Waters sings: I ain't foolin', you need schoolin' Baby, you know you need coolin' Woman, way down inside The band reached an agreement with Dixon, who used the settlement money to set up a program providing instruments for schools. The 1966 Small Faces song "You Need Loving" also coped from Dixon's song, and those lyrics are more similar to what Plant used. In that one, Steve Marriott sings: I ain't foolin', woman you need coolin' I'm gonna send you, right back to schoolin' Way down inside your heart, woman You need lovin'
The massive drum sound was the foundation of this track, so Jimmy Page recorded it in the big room at Olympic Studios in London, which had 28-foot ceilings. One of the engineers, George Chkiantz, got the sound by putting the drums on a platform and setting up microphones in unusual places: a stereo boom eight feet above the kit, two distant side microphones, and a AKG D30 placed two feet from the bass drum. "For the song to work as this panoramic audio experience, I needed Bonzo to really stand out, so that every stick stroke sounded clear and you could really feel them," Page said in the Wall Street Journal. "If the drums were recorded just right, we could lay in everything else."
See your Spotify stats (with number of plays and minutes listened) and discover new music.
Music data, artist images, album covers, and song previews are provided by Spotify. Spotify is a trademark of Spotify AB.