"Black Dog" is a song by the English rock band Led Zeppelin. It is the first track on the band's untitled fourth album (1971), which has become one of the best-selling albums of all time. The song was released as a single and reached the charts in many countries. It is "one of the most instantly recognisable Zeppelin tracks",<!-- source in article per LEAD--> and was included in Rolling Stones 500 Greatest Songs of All Time list (US), and ranked number one in Q magazine's (UK) "20 Greatest Guitar Tracks". The lyrics contain typical bluesman themes of lust, eroticism, and betrayal.
Composition
Themes
The title is a reference to a nameless black Labrador Retriever the band used to see wandering the Headley Grange studio grounds. The dog would disappear in the evening and return exhausted in the early morning, before resting all day and repeating his evening sojourns. Robert Plant believed the lab was spending nights with his "old lady" (dog). Likewise, the lyrics are narrated by a man obsessed with a woman, "got a flaming heart can't get my fill", he "can't keep away" from her "honey drip"; she reveals her true intention, spending his money, taking his car, "telling her friends she's gonna be a star", at which point the deception becomes clear and he turns cold, saying "a big-legged woman ain't got no soul". The story of lust, eroticism, and ultimately betrayal echoes the traditional reputation of the blues as being the music of the devil, alluded to in the lyric "eyes that shine a burning red".
Music
The song opens with muted sounds of guitars warming up in the background, an idea by Jimmy Page, who also made curious opening sounds in "Immigrant Song" and "Friends"; he was fond of starting songs in an unexpected way. The sounds are actually recordings of various guitar track openings played simultaneously, creating a "sonic collage" in which the tape can be heard spinning up to speed. Robert Plant then begins singing in a high, strong voice, "hey, hey, mama" unaccompanied by music (a cappella). This sets the structure of the song, around a call and response dynamic, between the vocalist and the band, back and forth. Starting and stopping the music was Jimmy Page's idea, and he was inspired by Fleetwood Mac's 1969 song "Oh Well".
Bassist John Paul Jones, who is credited with writing the main riff, said he was inspired by Muddy Waters' 1968 album Electric Mud. However he retracted this, in 2007, saying that he was confused, and that his main inspiration was actually The Howlin' Wolf Album by Howlin' Wolf, particularly the repeating riff in "Smokestack Lightning", which Jones and Page sped up.
Jones added complex rhythm changes, that biographer Keith Shadwick describes as a "clever pattern that turns back on itself more than once, crossing between time signatures as it does." The group had a difficult time with the turnaround, but drummer John Bonham's solution was to play it straight through as if there was no turnaround. As Jean-Michel Guesdon notes, the recording contains rhythmic coordination errors, such as between 0:41 and 0:47, when the guitars are not in sync with the drums. He says it was part of the band's "genius" to discount these "errors" as "curiosities", i.e., characteristic signatures of the song. In live performances, Bonham eliminated the variation so that Robert Plant could perform his a cappella vocal interludes and then have the instruments return at the proper time.
For his guitar parts, Jimmy Page used a Gibson Les Paul and made a complicated series of overdubs through various compressors and other equipment. This caused so much distortion, Page later said it sounded like an analog synthesizer.
Recordings and releases
The initial backing tracks of "Black Dog" were recorded on 5 December 1970 at Island Studios on Basing Street in London, with recording engineer Andy Johns. It was the band's first recording at Island Studios. Further tracks were made at Headley Grange (January 1971), and again at Island Studios (February 1971).
Although played at live concerts since March 1971, its first commercial release was on 8 November 1971, as track number one, side one of the album Led Zeppelin IV, which became one of the best-selling albums of all time. In 2010, it was demoted to number 300. Music sociologist Deena Weinstein calls "Black Dog" "one of the most instantly recognisable Zeppelin tracks". In 2007, Q magazine polled an "all-star panel", who ranked "Black Dog" as number one in a list of the "20 Greatest Guitar Tracks".
|1995
|18
|-
!scope="row"|The Guitar
|United States
|"Riff of the Millennium"
|1999
|7
|-
!scope="row"|Q
|United Kingdom
|"1010 Songs You Must Own!"
|2004
|*
|-
!scope="row"|Rolling Stone
|United States
|"The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time"
|2005
|*
|-
!scope="row"|Bruce Pollock
|United States
|"The 7,500 Most Important Songs of 1944–2000"
|2005
|*
|-
!scope="row"|Q
|United Kingdom
|"The 20 Greatest Guitar Tracks"
|2007
|1
|-
!scope="row"|Rolling Stone
|United States
|"The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time"
|9
|-
!scope="row"|Australia (Kent Music Report)
|10
|-
|-
!scope="row"|Danish Singles Chart
|5
|-
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!scope="row"|Japan (Oricon)
|24
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|-
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!scope="row"|New Zealand (RIANZ)
|10
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!scope="row"|Spanish Singles Chart
|align="center"|25
|-
|-
!scope="row"|US Billboard Hot 100
|15
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!scope="row"|US Cash Box
|9
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!scope="row"|US Record World
|10
|}
Digital download
{|class="wikitable plainrowheaders sortable" style=text-align:center;"
!scope="col"|Chart (2007)
!scope="col"|Peak<br/>position
|-
!scope="row"|Canadian (Canadian Digital Song Singles)
|59
|-
!scope="row"|UK Singles (OCC)
|119
|-
!scope="row"|US Billboard Hot Digital Songs
|64
|}
<small>Note: The official UK Singles Chart incorporated legal downloads as of 17 April 2005.</small>
Certifications
Personnel
Source:
- Robert Plant – vocals
- Jimmy Page – guitars
- John Paul Jones – bass
- John Bonham – drums
See also
- List of cover versions of Led Zeppelin songs
- List of Led Zeppelin songs written or inspired by others
Notes
Notes
Citations
References