Review Summary: Rising from the ashes like a phoenix only to crash and burn a year later.
“In Through the Out Door”, Led Zeppelin’s swansong. This album is a clear picture into the lives of a band falling apart at the seams. Robert Plant had just lost his 5 year-old son, Jimmy Page was in the middle of a horrible heroin addiction, and John Bonham was falling victim to his alcoholism. The only member of the band that was not in any sort of predicament was bassist and keyboardist John Paul Jones. When Led Zeppelin regrouped in 1978 to begin rehearsals for a new album, Jones was the one who lead the sessions and ultimately has a more audible stamp on this album than he had ever had on the previous seven Led Zeppelin studio albums.
Looking at what was going on at the time within the band, it’s no surprise that they took a turn like this. With Page and Bonham falling into their respective heroin and alcohol addictions, Plant and Jones were left to their own devices and instead of waiting around for Page and Bonham, began to write together for the first time. The famous Page & Plant writing team that gave the world songs like “Stairway to Heaven” and “Achilles Last Stand” had now become Jones & Plant. Recorded over a span of three weeks in November-December 1978 at ABBA’s Polar Studios in Stockholm, Sweden, this is the only Led Zeppelin album to feature keyboards on every track. Jones had obtained a Yamaha GX-1 (which was made famous by ELP’s Keith Emerson, ABBA’s Benny Andersson and Stevie Wonder) and with Plant began to write songs together for the first time in the band’s history. This album stands in high contrast to the previous studio album “Presence” in which Page took full creative control and produced his dream guitar album.
Opening up the album is the classic Led Zeppelin sounding track “In the Evening.” Complete with Page slamming on a whammy bar and Jones supplying a backdrop of synthesized strings, this song is a perfect way to open up an album. Plant himself has said that this song was a favorite of his. The unfortunate side of this song is that it is one of the few moments on the album where Page truly shines. Plant’s vocals are completely drenched in reverb, and it still is a hard one for me to sing along to because trying to figure out what he’s saying is a challenge.
The second track, “South Bound Saurez” is where Zeppelin started drifting away from their norms. Driven by Jones’s honky-tonk piano, Page, while audible, is pushed behind the piano. His solo apparently contains a few mistakes but he kept them in to add to the jumpiness and spontaneity of the track. If you also listen to the performance of “Dazed and Confused” from “The Song Remains the Same,” you can hear bits and pieces of the riff from this song. This was the first original song in the Led Zeppelin discography that did not bear a Page writing credit.
Now we have “Fool in the Rain,” another unorthodox song from the Jones/Plant collaboration that drove this album. This song is amazing. Inspired by samba music that they heard during broadcasts of the 1978 World Cup that had been held in Argentina. Driven once again by Jones’s piano, Page’s riff is once again subdued in the mix and also adds small 12-string guitar motifs before the song entered a samba breakdown. John Bonham’s drumming is on point throughout the entire song. The solo sees Page using an effect pedal that drops his guitar down an octave, which gives it a muddy sound. This song was also Led Zeppelin’s final single release, coming in at #21 in the United States in February of 1980.
OK…. this song. “Hot Dog” is literally one of the worst songs that Led Zeppelin ever put to record. However it is completely obvious that they were not being serious by any stretch so I can’t really hold it against them. I will, however, admit that on occasion I’ll put this song on because let's be honest, it's a fun song. It has become somewhat of a guilty pleasure of mine over the years, but it’s still a not a good song. It also is the only song on the entire album that does not carry a writing credit from Jones.
Opening side two of the album is the most ambitious song that Led Zeppelin had yet recorded, “Carouselambra.” Split into three distinct sections, this 10-and-a-half minute piece has the biggest John Paul Jones stamp on it than any of their later materials. This song can be seen as his answer to “Achilles Last Stand” in terms of it’s length and how he takes over on lead synthesizer for the first 4 minutes of the song and the final 3 minutes and pushes Page into the background. The first section, driven by Jones, features a repetitive riff then transitions into a slower guitar driven section in which Jones turns down his synths and gives Page a chance to shine. This song also marks the only occasion where Page used his famous Gibson EDS-1275 on a Led Zeppelin studio recording. The final section sees Jones come back to center stage with the synthesizer and has an almost disco feel to it with the synthesized bass and Bonham’s tight drums.
Apart from the synthesizers, the part about “Carouselambra” that fascinates me is Plant’s lyrics. When Page produced the album, the lyrics in the first section got buried in the mix and are very difficult to understand. Upon reading the lyrics, they still make very little sense. When I was in high school, after reading up more in my history of the band I began to guess that the lyrics specifically dealt with the story of the band and Plant’s frustrations with Led Zeppelin. The first section of the song seems to tell the listener the history of the band starting in their early days (“Sisters of the way-side bide their time in quiet peace/Await their place within the ring of calm”), then moving on to their heyday (“Still in their bliss unchallenged mighty feast/Unending dances shadowed on the day”), before moving on to the band’s difficult days (“How keen the storied hunter's eye prevails upon the land/To seek the unsuspecting and the weak”). During the slow middle section of the song, Plant seems to be focusing most of his anger at Page (“Where was your word, where did you go? Where was your helping, where was your bow?”), highlighting Jimmy Page’s use of a bow on his guitar and how Page (who was deep in his heroin addiction at the time of Plant’s son’s death) wasn’t there for Plant during his time of mourning. During the final section, the lyrics also seem just as reflective as he sings the lines “Held now within the knowing/Rest now within the peace/Take of the fruit, but guard the seed,” which also feels like he’s speaking about the loss of his young son, but also a message to his new son who was about to be born, that no matter what, he will protect him.
The next song is undoubtedly the most famous song on the entire album. “All My Love” is a tender and emotional ballad from a father to his son. This is the second song on the album not to feature a writing credit from Jimmy Page, and one of the only two original Led Zeppelin pieces not to feature his writing credit. Jones again dominates the song with his synthesizers, while Page’s guitar is almost pushed into the background again. We do hear him every now and then with little fills form a B-bender guitar. The highlight of the song for me will always be Jones’ synth solo, one of the few in Zeppelin’s discography. Page is known to not be fond of the song primarily due to the chorus being “soft.” However, he kept more of the harsher criticisms to himself most likely due to the subject of the song being Plant’s young son who had died. While never released as a single in the US, it has since become one of Led Zeppelin’s most popular pieces and is also considered by Robert Plant to be one of Led Zeppelin’s “shining moments.”
The drone of Jones’ Yamaha synth opens up the final Led Zeppelin song to be released in John Bonham’s lifetime, "I'm Gonna Crawl." This slow blues track with a synth backdrop is truly a lost gem in the Zeppelin canon. It is similar to “Tea for One” in the sense that it closes the album on a slow and somber note, and Zeppelin were known for closing their albums with a heavy track (i.e. “The Ocean,” “Sick Again,” “When the Levee Breaks”) and it also features a soulful and tear-jerking solo from Page. In an album drenched in keyboards, it’s nice for a change to hear a solo from one of rock’s finest guitar players. Towards the end of the song, Plant lets out a scream that to this day still sends a chill up my spine. For an album that is admittedly among Led Zeppelin’s weaker albums, they end it on a such a powerful note. I have to give them and this album extra points for that.
This album signified the return of a new, more mature Led Zeppelin. Following a concert in West Germany in July of 1980 at the end of a successful tour of Europe, Led Zeppelin’s American comeback was probably one of the most anticipated musical event of the year. But unfortunately, we would never get to see that comeback due to the untimely death of John Bonham. “In Through the Out Door” will always be seen as Led Zeppelin’s unintentional swansong, and is still subject to harsh criticism due to the sonic experimentation and the lack of involvement from Jimmy Page. But if you look at the album in the context of the time, perhaps you’ll begin to appreciate the album for what it is.
