But it was sure as hell ‘Four Sticks” after that. I can’t even remember what it was called, what the working title was. But it’s astounding what he’s doing… He’d never employed that style of playing before. because that’s all we could sort of manage. He liked Ginger Baker but he was like, “I’ll show him!” And he came in and he picked up the four sticks and that’s it, we just did two takes of it. had been to see Ginger Baker’s Airforce and he came in and he was really hyped about it. But we were going to re-cut it have another go at it. Jimmy Page told Mick Wall in his book When Giants Walked The Earth, how “Four Sticks” got its name when Zeppelin’s guitarist explained, “W e tried the number and had been playing it in a regular pattern. Bonham’s drumming is out of this world sounding like he’s a possessed locomotive furiously beating down the tracks. I actually prefer this low-fi recording to the LP mix. Although, John believed that Zeppelin never attempted “Sticks” live there is a recording from Copenhagen that exists that I believe trumps the final studio version recorded for Led Zeppelin IV. But somehow we all did it-and foxed each other.” Paul Jones said in Welch and Nicholls book. “ I remember ‘four sticks’ was obviously in 5/4 but I couldn’t work it out where the first beat was, and he couldn’t tell us. “Four Sticks” showed how Zeppelin was more than just Page and Plant, John Bonham is often overlooked with the credit of bringing out the eternal sound we love so much that Zeppelin created in the studio. If you think of ‘one’ being in the wrong place, you are completely screwed.” What if Zeppelin had given up on “Four Sticks?” If Jimmy Page, Robert Plant, John Bonham and John Paul Jones hadn’t finished “Four Sticks,” “Rock & Roll” might have also remained unfinished. It would be a great phrase, but you couldn’t relate it to a count. Where’s the first beat? You know it, but you gotta tell us…’ He couldn’t actually count what he was playing. Page would play something and say, ‘That’s great. John Paul Jones remembers how much difficulty the band had getting “Four Sticks” right as he explained to Chris Welch and Geoff Nicholls in John Bonham: A Thunder of Drums, “ And it took him ages to get ‘Four Sticks.’ I seemed to be the only one who could actually count things in. Zeppelin almost gave up on “Four Sticks,” which according to Mick Wall, was “ based on Page’s idea of creating a riff-based song based on a trance-like raga, fluctuating between five- and six-beat meters, the band simply could nail.” You can see why Led Zeppelin rarely played “Four Sticks” in concert one of the songs that almost didn’t make it on Zeppelin’s IV because of the trouble the band was having getting it right in the studio. Don’t Forget the Songs-365: Mach Tres: Day 265
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