Coda (album)

Background

Guitarist Jimmy Page explained that part of the reasoning for the album's release related to the popularity of unofficial Led Zeppelin recordings which continued to be circulated by fans:

Coda was released, basically, because there was so much bootleg stuff out. We thought, "Well, if there's that much interest, then we may as well put the rest of our studio stuff out".

John Paul Jones recalled:

They were good tracks. A lot of it was recorded around the time punk was really happening... basically there wasn't a lot of Zeppelin tracks that didn't go out. We used everything.

The fifth Swan Song Records album for the band, Coda was released to honour contractual commitments to Atlantic Records and also to cover tax demands on previous monies earned, cleared away close to all the leftover tracks from the various studio sessions of the 1960s and '70s. The album was a collection of eight tracks spanning the length of Zeppelin's twelve-year history.

"We're Gonna Groove" opens the album and, according to the album notes, was recorded at Morgan Studios in June 1969. It was later acknowledged to have come from a January 1970 concert at the Royal Albert Hall, with the guitar parts overdubbed and the original guitar part removed—this can be heard in the original Royal Albert Hall show on 9 January 1970. This song was used to open a number of concerts on their 1969 tours and was originally intended to be recorded for inclusion in Led Zeppelin II. "I Can't Quit You Baby" is taken from the same concert as "We're Gonna Groove" but was listed as a rehearsal in the original liner notes. The recording was edited to remove the overall "live" feel: the crowd noise as well as the beginning and ending of the song were deleted. Crowd tracks were muted on the multitrack mixdown on this recording as with "We're Gonna Groove."

"Poor Tom" is from sessions for Led Zeppelin III, having been recorded at Olympic Studios in June 1970, and "Walter's Walk" is a leftover from the sessions for Houses of the Holy. Side two consists of three outtakes from the band's previous album, In Through the Out Door, and an unused Bonham drum piece, "Bonzo's Montreux", recorded in 1976.

The 1993 compact disc edition has four additional tracks from the box sets, Led Zeppelin Boxed Set (1990) and Led Zeppelin Boxed Set 2 (1993), the previously unreleased "Travelling Riverside Blues", "White Summer/Black Mountain Side" and the "Immigrant Song" b-side "Hey, Hey, What Can I Do" from the former and the previously unreleased "Baby Come On Home" from the latter.

The album cover was designed by Hipgnosis, the fifth album cover the design group designed for Led Zeppelin. It was also the last album cover Hipgnosis designed before disbanding in 1983. The main four letters CODA are from an alphabet typeface design called "Neon" designed by Bernard Allum in 1978.

2015 reissue

A remastered version of Coda, along with Presence and In Through the Out Door were reissued on 31 July 2015. The reissue comes in six formats: a standard CD edition, a deluxe three-CD edition, a standard LP version, a deluxe three-LP version, a super deluxe three-CD plus three-LP version with a hardback book, and as high resolution 96k/24-bit digital downloads. The deluxe and super deluxe editions feature bonus material containing alternative takes and previously unreleased songs, "If It Keeps On Raining", "Sugar Mama", "Four Hands", "St. Tristan's Sword", and "Desire". The reissue was released with a negative version of the original album's artwork as its bonus disc's cover.

Standard edition

All tracks produced by Jimmy Page, except for "Travelling Riverside Blues", produced by John Walters, and "White Summer/Black Mountain Side" produced by Jeff Griffin.

1993/2008 compact disc editions – bonus tracks

Four bonus tracks were added to the remastered compact disc edition included in the career-spanning boxed set Complete Studio Recordings (disc ten), and the subsequent Led Zeppelin Definitive Collection (disc twelve).

Deluxe edition – bonus discs

Note;

Personnel

Charts

No commercial or promotional singles were issued, although three tracks received independent radio airplay. These songs were Led Zeppelin's debut on the Billboard Mainstream Rock Tracks chart, as the chart did not exist prior to 21 March 1981.