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With the posthumous release of "Coda" in 1982, Jimmy Page, the leader of Led Zeppelin, had scraped the bottom of the barrel, fulfilling contractual obligations with the record label and providing fans with a final serving of their beloved band's material.
With this 2008 release, a triple one, the aforementioned serving becomes a feast, increasing the tracks from eight to twenty-three, those original from 1982 (some of them slightly retouched) plus an additional fifteen. It's easy to distinguish the two versions of "Coda": in this Deluxe variant, the back cover changes from light to black while maintaining the same neon-style graphics.
But as it was with the "condensed" album at the time, there's nothing to be amazed about: if listening to the original "Coda" it was clear that there were no great gems left in Led Zeppelin's drawer, this release reiterates how all the magnificence created by the band is duly immortalized in their eight prestigious studio albums released from 1969 to 1979. Far from scraping the barrel... here Page has used a screwdriver to scrape the remnants between one plank and another!
Being Led Zeppelin, any unreleased tracks or alternate versions are still welcome. Personally, I'd even be happy to listen to a recording of these four attempting to cover "Besame Mucho" while drunk and then immediately "Garota de Ipanema," as long as Bonham bangs on the drums and cymbals as usual and the others follow suit… but in brief and to be objective, the broth is long, very long here.
First, I should mention that the mosaic of the eight songs of the original "Coda" consists of one piece from the third album, one from the fifth, and three from the eighth. Then we have a live version of a blues cover found on the first album, another live blues cover never recorded in the studio, yet paradoxically, with the public noise removed from the mix for some reason, and finally a divertissement by Bonham and Page, consisting solely of drums and electronic effects. These eight tracks logically form the content of the first of the three CDs or LPs of the release in question.
Among the fifteen songs spread across the other two discs, the jewel is "Hey Hey What Can I Do," once released as the b-side of the 1970 single "Immigrant Song." Well, I had that record, and on the b-side, or rather the A side, there was "Bron-Y-Our Stomp"... but maybe it was an Italy-only release. It's true that I used to hear "Hey Hey..." when Raidue connected to the wired broadcast at night, and even then, I regretted that it wasn't included in Led Zeppelin III. It's true that it would have further increased the quota of acoustic episodes on that record, but frankly, who cares... the Led were incredibly strong even unplugged, and the song is much better than "Hats Off to Roy Harper" or "Out on the Tiles"... the less strong episodes of the third album.
"Hey Hey..." is a semi-acoustic episode in genuine Led Zeppelin style, a country blues with Page on acoustic guitar and Jones on mandolin, proceeding calmly in the verses until in the last line, Plant switches to the upper octave, unleashing his legendary powerful semi-falsetto. The other three then join in the chorus (for once), where everything amps up, and it's once again the great music of the young Zeppelin, ending in a further crescendo. I would have placed the song at the end of the first side of Led Zepp III, with "Out on the Tiles" moved to the end of the record, removing that distorted ode to Roy Harper that thus would be useful for this record of clippings and remnants.
The remaining fourteen tracks can be divided, in descending order of interest, first into four unreleased tracks: the first "Baby Come On Home" is a leftover from the debut album of '69, but it would not have been out of place there, perhaps by shortening the concluding "How Many More Times" to a more normal length to make space for it. It would have further increased the variety of the album, as it is quite an orthodox rhythm and blues with piano, organ, and for them unusually homemade gospel choruses.
"Sugar Mama," on the other hand, is less successful, being yet another rock blues "stolen" from the blacks in those initial times when there was still scant repertoire for them: the expropriated party here is Sonny Boy Williamson, but Page on slide and Plant with his incredible young voice make themselves forgiven again; we're still in '68 and the sessions for the first album. Moving to Robert Johnson's "Traveling Riverside Blues," it can be said to be the best thing present after "Hey Hey...," with Page employing an "archaic" slide with a deeply penetrating sound and immense feeling; it's a 1969 BBC studio recording for one of their radio programs with an audience in the hall. "St.Tristan Sword" to finish is little more than a jam session, an instrumental from 1970 with guitar, bass, and drum beautifully compact, evidently failing to find a convincing vocal line.
Then there are a couple of "Indian" recordings from 1972: Page and Plant went on vacation to Bombay and recorded on site two of the more oriental songs in their repertoire, taken one from the third and one from the fourth album, accompanied by a so-called Bombay Orchestra: actually from what you hear, just a handful of musicians, two or three percussionists plus some pipes and a violin. "Four Sticks," among other things, missing Bonham with his famous four drumsticks, is rightly renamed "Four Hands," and anyway, the two present Zep do not even play on it, leaving the entire instrumental execution to the Indian orchestra. Similarly, "Friends" is only instrumental, but here Page is on acoustic guitar leading the dance.
Now it's time for some tempting demos, complete with provisional titles or working titles as the English call them. The first one encountered is "If It Keeps On Running," which is nothing more than the draft of "When the Levee Breaks"; certainly still not seismic as on Led Zeppelin IV because Bonham's drums are recorded in the studio, not in that historic, explosive manner in the hall of a country mansion. Furthermore, what is heard from Plant is a so-called guide vocal, an octave lower and in a subdued role. The structure of this future marvel (remember that it was written by the very tough black blueswoman Memphis Minnie) is anyway there, even if more swinging and much less relentless.
"Desire," instead is the demo of "The Wanton Song," and we are in 1974 at the sessions of "Physical Graffiti." It's quite similar to the definitive version, missing the overdubs and a more powerful production, but Bonham already pulls like a tugboat and listening to him is always orgasmic. There is, then, placed as a finale, the interesting demo of the charming "In the Light," again 1974 and again Graffiti. Its working title is "Everybody Makes It Through" and the interest lies in the fact that Plant at this stage still had a lot to work on for his parts. In fact, the verses do not exist; the singer mutters above a makeshift melody line, completely distant from what it will become, also inventing the words. However, the chorus "In the Liiiiiight!..." is already in its place as well as the long, haunting, memorable oriental prelude of synthesizers and electric guitar plucked with the e-bow.
A final demo takes us back to 1969, this time to work on Led Zep II. The song is already titled "Bring It On Home," but at this point, the intro and finale of archaic blues, copied verbatim from pioneer Robert Johnson without his name appearing in the album credits, are completely missing. The piece starts directly with the rock phase and ends with it.
The last four contributions, better defined as duplicates, the most forced and least intriguing of the bunch, concern a second "We’re Gonna Groove" (1968, a Led Zep 1 discard) in a version very similar to the one already present on the original "Coda" and hence in the first disc of this album. Same goes for a different take of "Bonzo’s Montreux," perhaps the most unnecessary episode in the entire Zeppelin repertoire. Moving on still and similarly with the semi-acoustic "Poor Tom" in which, on the occasion, Plant's voice is absent. The situation does not change even for "Walter's Walk," also a duplicate from the first disc and lacking the vocal track.
This is all for this tail of "Coda," the last drops squeezed from the large apple of the Zeppelin. Jimmy Page has assured several times that there can be no more in the future, that everything that the four meritorious Leds have produced together in the studio has been published. Thank you very much, Jimmy, God bless you and long life. Surely instead of spending almost full-time behind the Zeppelin catalog all these years, now about thirty, you could have given us some other memorable work, let’s say at least half as many as the Zep, it wasn’t so, but we are content, what you did for a decade is more than enough and you are in the history of music.
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