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Led Zeppelin, Good Times, Bad Times - Amy’s First Listen and Analysis (Patreon)

Published:
2024-12-17 12:20:19
Imported:
2026-06
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This song made me feel like getting up and getting active. Or should I simply … dream about it? I enjoyed the dynamic between the drums and the voice. 

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Comments

Tracey Baron

8:15 EST link still not working :(

Tracey Baron

Excellent reaction, Amy. Plant was just beginning to write lyrics, but he was listening to a lot of old blues at the time, so it's no surprise that "good times, bad times" became the theme for the song.

Simon-David Pressinger

That was absolutely fantastique Amy - we loved your analogy with visual art : the instruments framing the voice - we thought of Vermeer's 'Girl with a Pearl Earing' where the eye is drawn from eye to lips to the Earing in an infinite circle. At first I couldn't help thinking how different this from Edie Brickell's track that includes the lyrics "Good Times, Bad Times" - it was bundled with every copy of the Windows 95 operating system shipped by Microsoft!

George Brady

Amy, I can hardly describe the excitement of hearing this song explode out of my portable stereo, sitting cross-legged on the floor with my girlfriend in her parents house, where I had been invited on one my first weekend leaves from the Navy. We were mostly separated, of course, adding to the excitement. I'll never forget listening together, and then noticing her looking at me wide-eyed. "What?" I asked her. "Were you?" she answered. "What?" "Told!" "Told what?" "What it means to be a man!" Oh, my goodness...

Julian Ortiz

Very cool analysis! That riff! I’ve been playing guitar for 35 years and I still have not mastered it. It is indeed tough to nail just right, well unless you’re Jimmy Page. This just might be my favorite Led Zeppelin song, but it competes with at least 20 others. John Bonham’s drumming is insane in that it initial presents as very elementary, like Amy pointed out, but then he keeps adding these ornamental flourishes that just get more complicated, yet so very exciting. I think I dropped my jaw the first time I heard those bass drum triplets. Most modern drummers couldn’t do it without a double bass drum pedal and Bonham did it with one. The man was an amazing drummer and it’s no wonder why he’s been cited by so many drummers as an inspiration to this very day. Bravo to Vlad for pointing out Zeppelin were coming on the scene just as The Beatles were on their way out. I always think of them as having more overlap than just a year, but that only works if you consider Led Zeppelin is the extension to The Yardbirds. Clearly Led Zeppelin is a different band even if they do share lineage. I really enjoyed this. You know I’ll be back for more.

Terence colin Shortman

A bit more background for you The Yardbirds played their final gig on 7 July 1968 They were still committed to several concerts in Scandinavia, so McCarty and Relf authorized Page and bassist Chris Dreja to use the Yardbirds' name to fulfill the band's obligations. Page's first choice for the lead singer was Terry Reid, but Reid declined the offer and suggested Robert Plant, Plant eventually accepted the position, recommending John Bonham. John Paul Jones enquired about the vacant position of bass guitarist, at the suggestion of his wife, after Dreja dropped out of the project to become a photographer. The band completed the Scandinavian tour as the New Yardbirds, playing together for the first time in front of a live audience at Gladsaxe Teen Club at the Egegård School Gladsaxe, Denmark, on 7 September 1968. Later that month, they began recording their first album, which was based on their live set. The album was recorded and mixed in nine days, After the album's completion, the band were forced to change their name after Dreja issued a cease-and-desist letter, stating that Page was allowed to use the New Yardbirds moniker for the Scandinavian dates only. One account of how the new band's name was chosen held that Moon and Entwistle (The Who) had suggested that a supergroup with Page and Beck would go down like a "lead balloon", an idiom for being very unsuccessful or unpopular. The group dropped the 'a' in lead at the suggestion of Peter Grant, so that those unfamiliar with the term would not pronounce it "leed". The word "balloon" was replaced by "zeppelin", a word which, according to music journalist Keith Shadwick, brought "the perfect combination of heavy and light, combustibility and grace"

Stefan Martelius

This was fun! I'm glad you enjoyed it so much. Which was a bit surprising to me actually... and also that you liked Highway Star so much, b.t.w. I thought both would be a little bit too hard for your taste, but you're clearly developing into a metal head 😄🤘

Matsu
>>158634622

My two cents worth: Apparently they were called either Yardbirds, The Yardbirds, or Yardbirds featuring Jimmy Page even on that first Scandinavian tour, never the New Yardbirds. There was an article in the December 1968 issue of Hit Parader entitled "Jimmy Page's New Yardbirds", which has caused confusion ever since. I got this information from Greg Russo's book Yardbirds: The Ultimate Rave-Up. Amy's reaction made me think I should perhaps listen to Led Zeppelin, a band I never cared much about, with new ears. So, well done!

Steve

Vlad had it right there by juxtaposing with the Beatles. The world didn’t really know what to make of Led Zeppelin. Sure there was some hard stuff before, but nothing that was this unabashedly blues-rooted and edged. Particularly coming from “a bunch of studio musicians”. By the way, the second song is Babe I’m Gonna Leave You, which you did earlier. But much like the Beatles it’s important to understand how everything evolved, as each album was different from what came before. Step 1 for Zeppelin was raunchy, heavy blues. That was fun, thanks.

RAD1

I've heard and played many Zep covers, but Harp would be a cut above.

Terence colin Shortman
>>158634622

Interesting although Photographer Jorgen Angel documented Led Zeppelin's first concert, on 7 September 1968, capturing unique images of the band. Angel was the house photographer at the Gladsaxe Teen Club, a pop music venue in the Egegard School, in a suburb of Copenhagen. said "I'd been looking forward to hearing the Yardbirds again," he says, "but when I arrived, I saw a handwritten poster, stating, 'The New Yardbirds'. Then I knew something was wrong. "But when the New Yardbirds came on the stage and started playing, I was happily surprised by their energy. "[I was] so captivated that I used a roll and a half of film on them - and that was expensive for a schoolboy."

Tom Hawk

Yes, yes & yes!

Joe Cunningham

You’re often intellectually impressed with songs but it’s not often that you become so caught up in one that you become visibly excited and might lose your polite composure and start rocking out.

Eric Townsend

Really great Amy. I did not own this album back in the day but very familiar with it (I first owned Led Zeppelin II). I was in college with limited means so we all bought different albums to share. I especially love your comments about how the instruments including the voice have more or less equal weight of contributions. This is exactly the style of music I like. The one where I first noticed it clearly was "Thick As A Brick" (Jethro Tull) the 44 minute "song"/album, but was also part of my other favorites like Procol Harum, Spirit, Jefferson Airplane, and many others. TAAB has been described by a reviewer as the instruments and voice are like the sounds of animals interacting in the jungle, sometimes in cacophony, sometimes joining in harmony by the water hole. Most of Jethro Tull was like that after TAAB. A couple of songs from "Songs From The Wood" illustrate it such as "Songs from the Wood" or "Hunting Girl."

Fordy7169
>>159069240

Yes and critically Zeppelin were panned in the music press as being derivative plaigiarisers but the record-buying public, particularly in The U.S. bought into them a big way. English white boys again selling the blues back to unsuspecting white Americans, as happened throughout the 1960's.