Length 4:35 | Label Atlantic | |
Released 22 November 1969 (1969-11-22) Recorded Juggy Sound Studio, New York City, 1969 Genre Folk rock
hard rock
blues rock Writer(s) Jimmy Page
Robert Plant | ||
"Ramble On" is a song by English rock band Led Zeppelin from their 1969 album Led Zeppelin II. It was co-written by Jimmy Page and Robert Plant, and was recorded in 1969 at Juggy Sound Studio, New York, during the band's second concert tour of North America. In 2010, the song was ranked #440 on list of Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.
Contents
Influences
The song's lyrics were influenced by The Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkien. The opening line ("Leaves are falling all around") could be a paraphrase of the opening line of Tolkien's poem "Namárië".
Tolkien references appear later in the song's lyrics, including Mordor and Gollum.
Composition
The guitar's jangly introduction employs a classic Jimmy Page technique: using regular open chords superimposed higher on the fretboard.
There has been much doubt around Bonham's percussions in the background throughout the song, having regard to the particular resonance that it captures. There are no versions consistent in this respect: often mistaken for bongos, some said of a small plastic bin for waste played with the hands from the side of the bottom, others about the sticks on his drum kit vinyl seat pad, or even the soles of the shoes he wore during the recording session and so rhythmically beaten with his drum sticks; the book John Bonham: A Thunder of Drums reports instead of a hard case for guitar on which Bonham improvised percussion background with bare hands.
The song also serves as an illustration of the tight interplay between bassist John Paul Jones and drummer John Bonham.
Jones' light, melodic bass phrases give way to an ascending motif which follows Bonham's soft percussions.
When asked in an interview how he achieved that smooth, sustaining violin-like tone on the solo, Page Said:
"I used the neck pickup on my Les Paul and backed off on the treble knob on the guitar, and ran it through the sustainer Roger Mayer made for me years before. When I was recording it, I was thinking in terms of making a sound sort of like a string arrangement.
Live performances
Until 2007, "Ramble On" was never performed live in its entirety at Led Zeppelin concerts. However, part of the song was performed by the band in the middle of "Babe I'm Gonna Leave You" at a concert at Toronto on 2 November 1969, as can be heard on the Led Zeppelin bootleg Listen to My Bluebird. In addition, part of the song was sung by Robert Plant during "Communication Breakdown" at the show on 21 March 1970, at the Pacific Coliseum in Vancouver, B.C., Canada. It was played in its entirety for the first time at the Ahmet Ertegun Tribute Concert on 10 December 2007, at the O2 Arena in London; Page ended the song with a brief section of What Is and What Should Never Be's bridge.
In June 2008, Jimmy Page and John Paul Jones joined the Foo Fighters on stage at Wembley Stadium and performed "Ramble On"; Dave Grohl and Taylor Hawkins supplied the vocals and drums, respectively. Page and Jones also performed "Rock and Roll" with the band, this time with Grohl playing drums and Hawkins singing.