By E.C. McCarthy
In 1990, I was a teenager, newly transplanted to the U.S. and trying to figure out why American parents kept giving their children automobiles while talking incessantly about what terrible drivers they were. Late period Genesis got one thing right: America was a “land of confusion.”
I’d come from an all girls’ school in England, but now I had my first boyfriend. He wore black concert t-shirts and had floppy hair that hung over one eye. The fringe bounced magnificently when he enjoyed a tune. He made me a mixtape that only had one band on it.
“Led Zeppelin,” he said.
“Never heard of ‘em,” I replied.
The cassette was gold with no discernable markings, and the insert was handwritten on graph paper torn out of a notebook. The track listing (faithfully copied) ran like this:
Side A
Rock + Roll
The Ocean
Nobody’s Fault but Mine
Misty Mountain Hop
In The Evening
When the Levee Breaks
Hot Dog
Fool in the Rain
Side B
Hey Hey! What Can I do?
Boogie with Stu
Over the Hills + Far Away
Battle of Evermore
What is + What should never be
Going to California
Ramble On
Bring it On Home
Your time is gonna come
Black Mountain Side
Tangerine
My “girlfriend” routine was simple: the phone would ring, I’d rush to my boom box, hit play on the cassette deck, and make a mad dash for the phone.
“You’re listening to my mix.”
“Yeah! I love Led Zeppelin. They’re amazing,” I’d coo.
“What’s your favourite track?”
“All of them.”
“’Hey Hey What Can I Do’ is a bootleg,” he’d say.
“Absolutely,” I replied.
Admittedly, it was a rocky start between Zeppelin and me: I was on the phone with another guy while they pounded out music like gods trapped in a box. I was distracted and giggling while they serenaded me with the sweetest poetry. Their pleas for sex were lost on a girl who’d only been kissed. Zeppelin was the background noise for my first relationship, but once I said goodnight I turned them off. I wasn’t really listening. I had other things on my mind.
Then my boyfriend and I broke up. Suddenly, I didn’t need an excuse to hit play, and all I wanted was Zeppelin. I needed them. I listened to the cassette in my room one night, lights low, lava lamp burning, both sides the whole way through. I took in the lyrics, realised I knew the words. I closed my eyes and soaked in that full rock sound: Plant’s emotion, Page’s guitar licks, Jones’s foundation and Bonzo’s drums. This was my true introduction to the greatest band on earth, to the songs that would usher me into full-blown puberty with bluesy sex rock. I fell in love. Hard. And I never looked back.
Christmas of that year, the Zeppelin box set came out. I unwrapped that four-disc golden square, saw ZoSo carved into wheat fields, and my brain lit up like a crack addict. Other girls traded make-up tips while I poured over liner notes with biblical fanaticism. In its entirety, the Zeppelin catalogue was an accidental novel, the story of these guys growing together and apart with the years, the loves, and the tragedies. The more difficult material was always Physical Graffiti and Coda, which naturally produced my favourite songs over time; I earned them. “Hey Hey What Can I Do” was on there, too – thankfully, because I’d played that first cassette into dust, and it turned out bootlegs couldn’t be bought at Tower. (I asked.)
Zeppelin also brought me new friends at school – my people. We copied lyrics into notebooks and air drummed like freaks at a soundless concert. We begged DJs to play “D’yer Mak’er” at school dances and parties, and fell into revival-like rapture during the impossibly long intro to “In The Evening” – that teasing foreplay that was so horribly misunderstood by non-believers. We fought over song order on mixtapes and debated the meaning of dream sequences in The Song Remains the Same like responsible founders of a new religion.
When I went away to college, I drifted from Zeppelin. It was a dark period, musically. Hootie and the Blow Fish were on the radio. I went to a Dave Matthews concert. I really can’t talk about it. But years later, I found myself living in Tokyo, and Zeppelin came knocking. There was a hole-in-wall club called Gutter Cats, perched up high in an alley off of Roppongi-dori, and I stopped in one night on my way home from work to wait out a passing typhoon. All Japanese nightclubs have a random, sad-looking VIP section, and Gutter Cats was no different: two chairs pressed against a wall on one side of the club with a pathetic velvet rope dangling in front of them. On this particular night, I noticed the VIP section actually had people in it – two older blokes, knock-kneed and looking rather bored. The bartender nodded over at them, “Coverdale and Page.” I gave him an eye roll of the “tourists” variety, finished my drink and headed out into the storm. I was halfway home when I stopped in my tracks. Coverdale and Page? Jimmy Page! That was Jimmy Page! Jesus Christ! I turned and sprinted through torrential rain as fast as my stupid heels would carry me. When I got there the VIP chairs were empty. No one knew where they’d gone; Ghosts. I went home, dug out my faithful discs and gave “Over the Hills and Far Away” a spin. In one fateful night, we were back together again as though not a day had gone by.
Zeppelin and I have been through a lot. The band taught me to listen, gave me those early lessons in patience and trust that have enabled me to appreciate so many other bands since. I learned to give myself over to music, to get lost in it, to let it transport me. The band set the bar for cohesion; nothing fabricated will do after you’ve appreciated organic genius. “Over The Hills ” is my self-righteous choice on a hard day, chased by that crazy catcall, “Black Dog,” to pull me out of a funk. When that doesn’t work then “Bonzo’s Montreaux” is the only thing for it. Best get lost in Bonham’s reverie. Sure, there are a few songs that annoy me, but that’s part of any marriage. The band hasn’t mellowed with age; it’s hot as ever. We’re more in love than when we first met, we just don’t need to announce it every day. And when I come home at night, Zeppelin’s always there, warmed up and ready to take me anywhere I want to go.
E.C. McCarthy is a novelist and screenwriter. She lives in Los Angeles.
