They are in the twilight of their times now.
But long ago, now just a little speck in history,
a world had formed around them, fascinating in itself,
now bit by bit it is being carried off to the museums of ancient glory...
As with all art,
it is somehow prestigious to be a part of an artist’s early works.
Growing out of twisting, turning solos from a medieval land,
a time of incense, purple, paisley and bell-bottoms,
the cotton corduroy velvet pre-polyester days,
every pattern and thread telling a deep, far away story...
Life with Led Zeppelin
in the early years left
imprints of authoritative rock refinement,
of being a the crest of a trend,
of driving in the Rolls Royce of rock, of what is now,
a lifetime later, Classic Rock.
One had to walk a fine line- most girls liked Motown instead,
and this was more 'guy' music,"What, your album only has 9 songs,
look, my Motown record has 18, you got gypped!"
some will never understand...
One speaks of Led Zeppelin now in subdued tones.
Not because they hallowed,
but because one is trying to rekindle their once
serious teenbeat flame back to life,
a futile reach into the fountain of youth
when young psyches were made of a different mold
and cast in the spotlight, center stage.
These images fade into the past-
the magic years of the mid-teens of the time-
a time of house parties, the 70's,
not quite the Brady Bunch or Partridge Family,
but years which rock idols tore you away
from such families,
music that was one’s window into far off worlds.
The concerts were missed, lost by most,
a relief in a way- for to have lived them
meant dying with them;
yet a touch of sorrow at not being there-
they are now experiences one can only imagine
from across the distant gulf of time.
The Battle of Evermore now floats among the moonbeams
glimmering through transparent floor-length curtains of the past
at an imaginary twilight in an old part of the bygone section of town
where the longhairs dwelled but now torn down for a new highway,
far away from the reality
where the rebellious concert halls once abounded
and an accomplished British band
set the American stages aglow...
those who were there
are now legend among us
for boldly venturing forth and actually being a part of something...
"Hey, that's me cheering and whistling on that bootleg!"
The finest timbres of the electric guitar to date
issued forth from the stereo systems of the time,
the needles in the grooves of the vinyl
pressed at Atlantic Records,
just one generational step up
from the pastel phonograph record players
of the Beatles era.
Another band for yet another proud angsty class
graduating from the late 60’s generations,
amplifying their monstrous tunes in their muscle cars
and adding to the era of the baroque era of instrumental rock,
now a graying nostalgia at a road show.
Date: January, 1969. Place: Record store.
Old man to young cashier,
“Miss, this is an outrage! Don’t these people know
the Hindenberg was a great tragedy?”
The young miss did not give the relationship any significance,
this was an entirely new world
far removed from that past.
Infused with a production excellence rarely matched,
upbeat and assimilations of the blues psyche
at a time when hair was a defining force
of one’s societal madness,
flowing forward and back and mimicked
by a nation with three TV channels
still perpetuating the 50’s,
and along came these offbeat Brits
setting fire to the complacency,
ushering in a new youth culture dominated by the driving melodies
and unlikely harmonies of maturing screaming guitars,
carrying a generation out of the 50’s and 60’s and into the 70’s
with industrial age energy and a new materialism
the shallowness of which horrified the elder zen pastoral hipsters,
and that defined cool for yet another segment
of the young population
living when the stars were young
and the next Led Zeppelin album was due out before Christmas.
It was a time of metamorphosis of hippies into freaks,
the elder sibling’s ‘Peace, Love, Dope’
into the younger sibling’s ‘Drugs, Sex, and Rock-n-Roll’
and into their younger sibling’s ‘Party-On Dude!’.
Masterly tones, the proud classical music of rock,
accomplished yet still young,
Jimmy Page's fingers the finest in their class.
Another foursome group of a long line spawned from the Beatles
who arrived just 6 short years earlier,
which might as well have been 600 years earlier
as far as guitar technology was concerned,
exemplifying a time when the art changed at a blistering pace,
where last year’s music sounded like last century’s music…
There was electricity and acoustics blended into long compositions
that went way beyond the 3-minute limit of AM radio,
giving impetus to an entirely new world- FM radio
where they played the defining solos
of the longer masterpieces of the genre
and a generation reaching for new heights.
A time when art briefly held sway over profit,
upon this newly beaten path trod these young new artists
endowed with more art than the industry would soon allow.
The excitement of the times
included the rumor of bootlegs
concert tickets, psychedelic era posters
and icons of the acid rock age.
A Led Zeppelin song was a rare treat on the car radio,
an pounding artsy oasis in a desert of dance tunes,
taking us far beyond our sheltered lives
and into the eminence of British royalty
and the international world in one turn of the dial.
Riding the crest of the British Invasion
and not too shabby on bass,
way more electric, less commercial,
a hip subculture of heightened social skills for some,
the words just a filler for the instruments
and a vehicle for the vocals,
never really paid much attention to the words,
even in the later days
when the artists and the crowd grew older
the lyrics were a window dressing,
even a distraction, but a necessary aspect
giving the music added presence and life.
Not trail blazers or half-a-decade ahead of their times
in the vein of a Jimmi Hendrix
but the first album setting a refined standard and direction
far different and above the contemporaries.
Tolkien’s Ringwraiths, Gollum, the Misty Mountains, the ruins,
generously sprinkled throughout their works
with a superior drummer gone living room style
to the disappointment of drum-roll lovers everywhere.
Their pulsating story has the liveliness
of the nature of the era
that the tours were meant to showcase.
Up from the underground
one follows their years and
throbs with the intonations on the front porch,
or 'gets into' the psychedelic concerts
and extraterrestrial vocals/guitar dances
woven from pure creative artistic vigor
and modern angst,
borrowing and stealing from their prior classes
and playing it all to death
in live performances that always paled next to the studio masters
and Rock's premier session guitarist in the 60’s
who set out to form the New Yardbirds.
In the chill of youth long gone and spent,
clinging to relics as if to an eternal youthful fountain,
many will choose to be buried with their Led Zeppelin items-
tickets, posters, bootlegs,
and unofficial paraphernalia which is most sought after-
icons of the counter-culture art world of the time
that if held long enough will perpetuate that youth
that existed simultaneously when Led Zeppelin was young.
Future Internet archaeologists
searching for strange worlds to dig up
will find one in the era of Led Zeppelin
and complete it in their own way
finding a bootleg of Led Zeppelin live
at the Fillmore West
and playing it
surrounded by Led Zeppelin relics.
May they not forget the incense and bead curtains,
and the waterbed...
Let's travel back and get those Led Zeppelin tickets
that we missed and be a part of the aura
that gave us classic rock, if only for an evening,
to remember for a lifetime.
Gold trophy winner
Adding your comment:
glad you muddled through the whole piece here... I see a few things to improve, thanks for the comment!
I now have a boxed set(very old) of all the albums on cd. I sooo love Zepplin, omg. I also used to be able to play Stairway to Heaven on the guitar. 
I dated a man that lives and breathed Led Zeppelin. I have no idea how many concerts I attended with him. The last one being a few years ago, in the state of Washington. I love the historical flavor of this piece. You did a commendable job Mr. Biro. Good luck in the contest! 
11 old applause
