Led Zeppelin are on the duvet of Uncut’s April 2025 situation, as Jimmy Web page, Robert Plant and John Paul Jones have fun the fiftieth anniversary of Bodily Graffiti with unique new interviews.
On this extract, Web page and Plant recall a pivotal journey to Morocco – simply after they completed their 1973 tour in help of Homes Of The Holy – and the way inspiration from their travels fed into “Kashmir“, when the band reconvened at Headley Grange in October 1973 to start work on their masterpiece, Bodily Graffiti.
PAGE: We went to Morocco roughly straight after Madison Sq. Backyard. Robert was going to Marrakech with Maureen, his spouse, and I used to be going to go over there and be part of them. We have been going to do some touring after which we have been going to do some recording on the tail finish someday in that yr. There was a people pageant in Marrakech, with tribes coming from throughout Morocco of their conventional costume and taking part in their native music. After they got here off the stage, they’d keep on taking part in or singing whereas the following lot are approaching, so you probably did get this form of crossfading. That was the primary time I heard Joujouka musicians for actual. It was spine-tinging stuff, so was lots of the opposite music that you just heard. Then we began touring round Morocco. We had a beautiful journey.
PLANT: We wanted area and time to be stimulated. I already knew a few folks in Guelmim from once I first was in Morocco. The ladies took Maureen off someplace in and painted her up with Henna and I ended up taking part in 11 apart soccer in 30 levels Celsius. Nevertheless it was nice. So, to return there with Jimmy… he and I went means down within the desert previous Tantan, the place the Inexperienced March had gone into Western Sahara. That space by Tarfaya, down within the backside earlier than you get to Mauritania. You may get there now, after all, that’s the place the gods are resting. That’s the place all of it hangs out, the place there’s area. It’s so evocative.
PAGE: On the second day [at Headley Grange], I went by some issues with John Bonham. However after we got here again the next week, I put extra of my very own stuff, this adrenaline music I’d labored on at house, to John Bonham, to see what he likes and hope he likes all of it. I went by “Sick Once more” and “Wanton Track” with John. I play him somewhat little bit of “In My Time Of Dying”. I had this different riff, however I didn’t need to lay it on him right away. Lastly, I assumed, ‘Proper, that is the chance…’ As soon as we began taking part in “Kashmir”, I don’t know the way lengthy we performed it for however he didn’t need to cease and I didn’t need to cease. There’s a bootleg the place we’re simply taking part in the riff repeatedly, it simply locks in. By now, we had folks to help us. We report “Kashmir” and “Sick Once more”. With “Kashmir”, I needed to report it in order that I may check out these different concepts. I had a fanfare that I needed to put on prime of it. So we begin placing the association collectively. We all know that we’re on one thing, no one’s ever gone wherever close to this. It was new music, nobody had ever heard something prefer it.
PLANT: I wasn’t actually writing within the 1st individual, I used to be creating this melange of the way it felt. “After which all I see turns to brown”. At completely different occasions of the day, the cliffs and the mountains would change color. And in order it developed as a 4 piece, it grew and grew till the whole lot made sense. All of it, the weave of the entire thing was one thing. I can hear it now and maintain strolling, however typically I hear it and I simply sit down and hear. “Kashmir”, it’s what it’s. It’s simply such an achievement – and it’s an achievement even now, all these years later. I feel it was the personalities of us that made us say, ‘That is it,’ as a result of it’s simply sufficient, and for folks, possibly later, it was an excessive amount of. However on the report, there have been moments the place it was like, “Let’s get on with this. Let’s make one thing that’s going to hit you between the ears.” I’ve acquired the e-book at house [with the original lyrics]. It’s acquired the sticker, magenta on white, of the Zeppelin IV logos. It’s caught throughout a notepad with all types of meanderings. ‘Driving by Kashmir’. Oh, fancy that. For me, if I’m impressed, I can deliver one thing ahead. It’s not Blood On The Tracks, it doesn’t have the identical intense, mature overview. This was nonetheless earlier than the large crash. Time, pleasure, camaraderie have been all completely, fantastically intact.