Good Times Bad Times

Composition

For the lead guitar solo, guitarist Jimmy Page passed his Fender Telecaster guitar through a Leslie speaker to create a swirling effect. This type of speaker contains a rotating horn enclosure and was designed for a Hammond organ. However, guitars could be used with it. In an interview, he gave to Guitar World magazine in 1993, Page explained that:

I do remember using the board to overdrive a Leslie cabinet for the main riff in 'How Many More Times'. It doesn't sound like a Leslie because I wasn't employing the rotating speakers. Surprisingly, that sound has real weight. The guitar is going through the board, then through an amp which was driving the Leslie cabinet. It was a very successful experiment.

Page, also the band's producer, placed microphones all over the recording studio to capture a live sound when this song was recorded.

This song is also notable for drummer John Bonham's repeated use of a series of two sixteenth-note triplets on a single bass drum, an effect many subsequent rock drummers have imitated, and as well as keeping the hi-hat playing eighth notes throughout almost the entire song with his left foot. Bonham had reportedly developed this technique after listening to Vanilla Fudge. He was unaware that drummer Carmine Appice was actually playing on a double bass set. As Page has stated:

The most stunning thing about the track, of course, is Bonzo's amazing kick drum. It's superhuman when you realize he was not playing with double kick. That's one kick drum! That's when people started understanding what he was all about.

Bass guitarist John Paul Jones has also remarked on his own contribution to the track:

Usually anything [by Led Zeppelin] with lots of notes was mine and anything with chunky chords was Page's. Things like 'Good Times Bad Times', those are my sort of riffs, they're quite busy.

Jones says that the riff he wrote for this song was the most difficult one he ever wrote.

Live performances

"Good Times Bad Times" was rarely played live at Led Zeppelin concerts in its entirety. In a few instances in 1969 it was used as an introduction to "Communication Breakdown" (as seen in Led Zeppelin (Deluxe Edition). It also appeared in almost complete form within the "Communication Breakdown" medley performed at the LA Forum on 4 September 1970, where it included a bass solo by Jones (as can be heard on the Led Zeppelin bootleg recording Live on Blueberry Hill), and several "Whole Lotta Love" medleys in 1971. It was also the opening song for Led Zeppelin's reunion show at the O2 Arena, London on 10 December 2007. The version of "Good Times Bad Times/Communication Breakdown" released 15 April 2014, on iTunes, is from 10 October 1969 in Paris, on the European Tour of Autumn 1969.

Formats and track listings

1969 7" single (UK: Atlantic 584269, US/New Zealand: Atlantic 45-2613, Australia: Atlantic AK 2914, Canada: Atlantic AT 2613X, France: Atlantic 650 153, Germany: Atlantic ATL 70369, Greece: Atlantic 255 002, Italy: Atlantic ATL NP 03117, Japan: Nihon Gramophone DT-1105, Philippines: Atlantic 45-3734, Sweden: Atlantic ATL 70.369)

1969 7" single (South Africa: Atlantic ATS410)

1969 7" EP (Mexico: Atlantic EPA 1577)

1972 7" EP* (Argentina: Music Hall 186)

Notes:
(*) B-side by Yes

Personnel

Godsmack cover

American rock band Godsmack covered the song in 2007, for their album, Good Times, Bad Times... Ten Years of Godsmack. It was the only song on the album to be newly released as a single and gained moderate radio airplay on US rock stations. A music video was also created for the Godsmack version of the song, featuring live footage.