Led Zeppelin are often credited for creating some of the heaviest music in the hard-rock canon. But Jimmy Page, the group’s main songwriter, was anything but one-dimensional in his output.
Perhaps no track in the band’s catalog demonstrates this better than “The Rain Song,” the second cut on Zeppelin’s fifth album, 1973’s Houses of the Holy. Combining guitar work inspired by folk, blues and jazz with a sentimental orchestral score and Robert Plant’s romantic lyrics, “The Rain Song” is a track you either skip over or submit to.
But where did the inspiration for such an atypical Zeppelin track come from? Apparently from a Beatle: George Harrison.
Page explained the song’s genesis to former Guitar World editor Brad Tolinski in his book Light and Shade: Conversations With Jimmy Page. As he revealed, Harrison — newly solo following the Beatles’ breakup — was discussing Zeppelin’s music with the band’s drummer, John Bonham.
“George 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,” Page continued, “you’ll notice I even quote ‘Something’ in the song’s first two chords.”
Page — who tuned his electric and acoustic guitars to D G C G C D for the track — does in fact follow the same descending progression heard in the verse from Harrison’s “Something,” from major to major 7 to 7.
The irony is that Harrison himself took his opening lyrics to “Something” from the James Taylor song “Something in the Way She Moves,” from Taylor’s 1968 self-titled debut. Harrison knew Taylor’s song well, since the folk singer was among the artists signed to the Beatles Apple label. Both he and Paul McCartney had been key in bringing Taylor aboard, and even contributed performances to his debut.
Harrison was correct in his appraisal of Zeppelin’s catalog, and Page was resolute in making his response. “The Rain Song” is profoundly unlike anything else the band created.
Page seemed the know the band was treading far from their well-beaten path. His working title for the tune was “Slush,” a word that among the Brits informally refers to something overly sentimental. The song’s orchestral passages, performed by bass guitarist John Paul Jones on a Mellotron, recall Muzak, the anonymous easy-listening music once commonly played in department stores for ambience.
While the song has its detractors (Rolling Stone’s reviewer slagged it and “No Quarter” as “drawn-out vehicles for the further display of Jones’ unknowledgeable use of Mellotron and synthesizer”), “The Rain Song” touched a nerve in many record buyers and future musicians, including producer Rick Rubin.
“I don’t even know what kind of music this is,” Rubin declared in a 2010 artists picks feature for Rolling Stone. “It defies classification. There’s such tasteful, beautiful detail in the guitar, and a triumphant feel when the drums come in — it’s sad and moody and strong, all at the same time. I could listen to this song all day. That would be a good day.”
And while there’s no denying that it’s the odd duck among the vibrant rockers on Houses of the Holy, “The Rain Song” is a fitting entry in a catalog that defied convention and both established and expanded the hard-rock repertoire. The track arguably paved the way for the power ballad.
While we don’t know if Harrison ever had a response to “The Rain Song,” we do know he wasn’t a fan of the heavier guitar sounds that players like Page pursued in the wake of Cream-era Eric Clapton and Jimi Hendrix.
For that matter, we have a record of when Harrison first heard about Led Zeppelin in a January 1969 recording session during the making of Let It Be. Asked if he’s heard the album from Jimmy Page’s new band, Harrison seems a bit confused.
“Jimmy Page? Is he the one that was in the Yardbirds?” he asks.
Told it is indeed the very same Jimmy Page, Harrison pointedly demurs.
“Uh… I think is lunch ready?” he replies.
