When the Levee Breaks: Difference between revisions
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The Led Zeppelin version features a distinctive and often-[[Sampling (music)|sampled]] pounding drum beat by [[John Bonham]] recorded in a three-story stairwell, driving [[guitar]]s and a wailing [[harmonica]], all presumably meant to symbolize the relentless [[storm]] that threatens to break the [[levee]], backing a powerful vocal performance by Robert Plant. The vocals were processed differently on each verse, sometimes with phasing added. |
The Led Zeppelin version features a distinctive and often-[[Sampling (music)|sampled]] pounding drum beat by [[John Bonham]] recorded in a three-story stairwell, driving [[guitar]]s and a wailing [[harmonica]], all presumably meant to symbolize the relentless [[storm]] that threatens to break the [[levee]], backing a powerful vocal performance by Robert Plant. The vocals were processed differently on each verse, sometimes with phasing added. |
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The famous drum performance was actually recorded by [[Andy Johns]] by placing Bonham and a new drumkit at the bottom of a stairwell at [[Headley Grange]], and recording it using two [[Beyerdynamic]] M160 [[microphone]]s at the top, giving the distinctive resonant but slightly muffled sound.<ref name="Welch">{{cite book|last=Welch|first=Chris|title=Led Zeppelin: Dazed and Confused - The Stories Behind Every Song|publisher=Thunder's Mouth Press|date=1998-10-01|id=ISBN 1-56025-188-3|pages=pp. 70, 72}}</ref><ref name="Lewis">{{cite book|last=Lewis|first=Dave|title=Led Zeppelin: The Complete Guide to Their Music|publisher=Omnibus Press|date=2004-09-01|id=ISBN 1-84449-141-2|pages=p. 33}}</ref> The [[break (music)|break]] has long been popular in [[hip hop music|hip hop]] and dance music circles for its "heavy" sound and has been used for many tracks.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://the-breaks.com/perl/full.pl?genre=3&page=L|title=Artist Samples beginning with the letter L|accessdate=2006-07-30|publisher=The-Breaks.com}}</ref> |
The famous drum performance was actually recorded by [[Andy Johns]] by placing Bonham and a new drumkit at the bottom of a stairwell at [[Headley Grange]], and recording it using two [[Beyerdynamic]] M160 [[microphone]]s at the top, giving the distinctive resonant but slightly muffled sound.<ref name="Welch">{{cite book|last=Welch|first=Chris|title=Led Zeppelin: Dazed and Confused - The Stories Behind Every Song|publisher=Thunder's Mouth Press|date=1998-10-01|id=ISBN 1-56025-188-3|pages=pp. 70, 72}}</ref><ref name="Lewis">{{cite book|last=Lewis|first=Dave|title=Led Zeppelin: The Complete Guide to Their Music|publisher=Omnibus Press|date=2004-09-01|id=ISBN 1-84449-141-2|pages=p. 33}}</ref> The [[break (music)|break]] has long been popular in [[hip hop music|hip hop]] and dance music circles for its "heavy" sound and has been used for many tracks.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://the-breaks.com/perl/full.pl?genre=3&page=L|title=Artist Samples beginning with the letter L|accessdate=2006-07-30|publisher=The-Breaks.com}}</ref> At one time the remaining Led Zep members took legal action against [[The Beastie Boys]] for their use of this drum sample on their first album.<ref>[http://www.abc.net.au/triplej/music_specials/s1402502.htm Australian Broadcasting Corporation website]</ref> |
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[[Jimmy Page]] recorded Plant's harmonica part using the [[backward echo]] technique, putting the [[echo]] ahead of the sound when mixing, creating a unique effect. |
[[Jimmy Page]] recorded Plant's harmonica part using the [[backward echo]] technique, putting the [[echo]] ahead of the sound when mixing, creating a unique effect. |
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This song was the only one on the album that was not remixed after a supposedly disastrous mixing job in the US (the rest of the tracks were mixed again in England). The original mixing done on this song seemed to suit it very well, so it was kept in its original form. |
This song was the only one on the album that was not remixed after a supposedly disastrous mixing job in the US (the rest of the tracks were mixed again in England). The original mixing done on this song seemed to suit it very well, so it was kept in its original form. |
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Because this song was heavily produced in the studio, it was difficult to recreate live. The band only played this song a few times on their 1975 U.S. Tour. |
Because this song was heavily produced in the studio, it was difficult to recreate live. The band only played this song a few times on their 1975 U.S. Tour. |
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==Cultural Meaning== |
==Cultural Meaning== |
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Revision as of 13:27, 20 August 2007
| "When the Levee Breaks" | |
|---|---|
| Song |
"When the Levee Breaks" is a blues song written and first recorded by husband and wife Kansas Joe McCoy and Memphis Minnie in 1929. The song is in reaction to the upheaval caused by the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927.
It was famously re-worked by English rock group Led Zeppelin as the last song on their fourth album, released in 1971. The lyrics in Led Zeppelin's version were based on the original recording. It was also on A Perfect Circle's third album eMotive, a collection of covers of political songs.
Origin
The original work for "When the Levee Breaks" was produced by the blues musical duo known as "Kansas Joe McCoy" and "Memphis Minnie." The lines at the end of the song, "Going to Chicago; sorry but I can't take you", quote "Going to Chicago Blues" by Jimmy Rushing and the Count Basie Orchestra. In the first half of 1927, the Great Mississippi Flood ravaged the state of Mississippi and surrounding areas. It destroyed many homes and ravaged the agricultural economy of the Mississippi Basin. Many people were forced to flee to the cities of the Midwest in search of work, contributing to the "Great Migration" of African Americans in the first half of the 20th century. During the flood and the years after it subsided, it became the subject of numerous Delta blues songs, including "When the Levee Breaks", hence the lyrics, "I works on the levee, mama both night and day, I works so hard, to keep the water away" and "I's a mean old levee, cause me to weep and moan, gonna leave my baby, and my happy home". The song focused mainly on when more than 13,000 residents in and near Greenville, Mississippi evacuated to a nearby, unaffected levee for its shelter at high ground. The tumult that would have been caused if this and other levees had broken was the song's underlying theme.[1][2]
Led Zeppelin's version
| "When the Levee Breaks" | |
|---|---|
| Song |
Robert Plant of Led Zeppelin had the original McCoy and Minnie recording in his personal collection. He removed and rearranged lines and line parts from the original song and added new lyrical parts, and combined it with a revamped melody. Recording for the song took place in December of 1970.
The Led Zeppelin version features a distinctive and often-sampled pounding drum beat by John Bonham recorded in a three-story stairwell, driving guitars and a wailing harmonica, all presumably meant to symbolize the relentless storm that threatens to break the levee, backing a powerful vocal performance by Robert Plant. The vocals were processed differently on each verse, sometimes with phasing added.
The famous drum performance was actually recorded by Andy Johns by placing Bonham and a new drumkit at the bottom of a stairwell at Headley Grange, and recording it using two Beyerdynamic M160 microphones at the top, giving the distinctive resonant but slightly muffled sound.[3][4] The break has long been popular in hip hop and dance music circles for its "heavy" sound and has been used for many tracks.[5] At one time the remaining Led Zep members took legal action against The Beastie Boys for their use of this drum sample on their first album.[6]
Jimmy Page recorded Plant's harmonica part using the backward echo technique, putting the echo ahead of the sound when mixing, creating a unique effect.
The song was recorded at a different tempo, then slowed down. Plant then sang in the sort of in between key the song was now in (approximately F minor), which explains its sort of flat and sludgy sound, particularly on the harmonica and guitar solos. This also made it very difficult to accurately reproduce live.
This song was the only one on the album that was not remixed after a supposedly disastrous mixing job in the US (the rest of the tracks were mixed again in England). The original mixing done on this song seemed to suit it very well, so it was kept in its original form.
Because this song was heavily produced in the studio, it was difficult to recreate live. The band only played this song a few times on their 1975 U.S. Tour.
Cultural Meaning
The song has a significant second connotation, aside from the literal breaking of water-retaining levees by floodwaters. The song was inspired originally by an event rife with social strife (when the levees broke in 1927, black labor was forced to repair it at gunpoint), and this fact carries through in the lyrics. Plant expanded the lyrics to include such phrases as "If you're goin' down south / they got no work to do / if you don't know 'bout Chicago" that add to the original themes of the poor being disenfranchised--the poor, working classes are the ones whose homes are going to be destroyed by floodwaters, and they are the ones who will have nowhere to go afterward.
The second connotation of the song is built on an interesting twist. If the song is interpreted as a social statement reflecting class issues, then the poor themselves become the raging storm, restrained by oppressive (often governmental) institutions (the levees), and who will inevitably strike down what restrains them. In this interpretation, 'when the levee breaks,' it will be the former oppressors whose constructs are destroyed and who are cast out into the cold. In this interpretation, the song serves as a warning to oppressive upper classes that if they provoke a raging storm of social fury, they may sit on their social levee and "weep and moan," but "crying won't help [them], praying won't do [them] no good."
Other versions
Several other artists have covered the song or played it live:
- Page and Plant had performed it on their MTV Unplugged appearance and their 1995-96 world tour, swapping it with "Nobody's Fault But Mine" at times.[4][3] John Paul Jones worked the song into the tour for his two solo albums.[4]
- Dread Zeppelin covered it on 5,000,000
- Judge covered it on the CD edition of their EP There Will Be Quiet... in 1990
- W.A.S.P. released a version on the bonus disk of The Crimson Idol in 1991
- John Campbell covered it on his Howlin' Mercy album in 1993
- Kristin Hersh, formerly of the band Throwing Muses, on the Strings EP in 1994
- Rosetta Stone covered it on the album An Eye For The Main Chance in 1991
- Leftover Salmon did a version on the Ask the Fish live album in 1995. According to Jimmy Page, he is the one who set up and recorded the drum sound from this song.
- Tori Amos played it on her 2005 world tour.
- A Perfect Circle inclued a version on their cover album eMOTIVe in 2004. There were few changes in lyrics but the melody was very different from Led Zeppelin's version.
- Albert Kuvezin and Yat-Kha included it on in their cover album Re-Covers in 2005
- At the beginning of Tempation by The Tea Party, there is a sped-up drum solo at the beginning. When slowed down, it is not unlike the beginning of When the Levee Breaks.
- Stream of Passion as b-side on their single Out in the Real World and on their live album/DVD Live in the Real World, both in 2006.
- Film score composer John Powell on the soundtrack to the 2006 film Ice Age: The Meltdown.
- Bob Dylan's song "The Levee's Gonna Break" on the 2006 album Modern Times is loosely based on the song.
- New Orleans drummer Stanton Moore's 2006 solo effort entitled III, as the song's subject has been compared to the effect of Hurricane Katrina on New Orleans; it is also the main theme for the event.
- Marcelo Nova, a brazilian singer, covered in the 2001 album Tijolo na Vidraça.
- New Orleans native jam band Galactic did a version containing no words, which became a regular rotation in their sets post-Katrina.
Miscellanea
- Since 78 years have passed since Memphis Minnie's version was recorded in 1929, the song is now in the public domain, meaning anyone can record it without paying royalties.
- When the Levees Broke, a documentary on Hurricane Katrina, is a play on the title of the song.
See also
Sources
- Led Zeppelin: Dazed and Confused: The Stories Behind Every Song, by Chris Welch, ISBN 1-56025-818-7
- The Complete Guide to the Music of Led Zeppelin, by Dave Lewis, ISBN 0-7119-3528-9
References
- ^ Cheseborough, Steve (2004-05-01). Blues Traveling: The Holy Sites of Delta Blues. Mississippi: University Press of Mississippi. pp. pp. 132-133. ISBN 1-57806-650-6.
{{cite book}}:|pages=has extra text (help) - ^ Garon, Paul (1992-04-01). Woman With Guitar: Memphis Minnie's Blues. Da Capo Press. ISBN 0-306-80460-3.
- ^ a b Welch, Chris (1998-10-01). Led Zeppelin: Dazed and Confused - The Stories Behind Every Song. Thunder's Mouth Press. pp. pp. 70, 72. ISBN 1-56025-188-3.
{{cite book}}:|pages=has extra text (help) - ^ a b c Lewis, Dave (2004-09-01). Led Zeppelin: The Complete Guide to Their Music. Omnibus Press. pp. p. 33. ISBN 1-84449-141-2.
{{cite book}}:|pages=has extra text (help) - ^ "Artist Samples beginning with the letter L". The-Breaks.com. Retrieved 2006-07-30.
- ^ Australian Broadcasting Corporation website
