Zeppelin ‘When the Levee Breaks’ Guitars DEMYSTIFIED!

Explaining jimmy page has always been sort of a creative touchstone for me over the decades when i’m low on inspiration i can usually zoom in on some aspect of his work with led zeppelin and i’ll get all fired up again to do something interesting and that has definitely been the case

With today’s topic even if you’re not a guitar player or a musician you might want to stick around because the creativity of this stuff is pretty mind-blowing but be forewarned folks it gets nerdy the other night i went down a rabbit hole trying to learn the real guitar

Part from when the levee breaks you guys know the song it’s the thunderous ending track from led zeppelin’s fourth and biggest selling album which we all call led zeppelin iv but was really titled with four unexplained symbols or sigils which reminds me that’s why i’m rocking the zoso today

I don’t understand what it means but it brings up all the warm and fuzzy zeppliny associations for me this song is so cool it manages to hold its own on the same album with big zep flagships like black dog The great rock and roll song simply called rock and roll And some other deep album cuts that you’ve probably never heard of clocking in at over seven minutes long when the levee breaks is a heavy swampy atmospheric track and a really interesting choice for an album closer it was almost never played in zeppelin’s live shows for reasons that might become clear in this

Video but it remains a huge fan favorite and we all love it now whenever people discuss this song it’s always about the drums which is understandable because it’s got to be the most iconic rock drum track in history famously tracked in an echoing stairwell sampled on countless hip-hop songs etc etc

Probably the best commentary about the drum sound is rick beatto’s video about it from 2019 which i’ll link to for you in the description in some ways this video is a continuation of rick’s because what he did for clearing up the story about the drums on this song

I would like to do for the guitars so i dedicate this one to you mr beatto i shook your hand at the namm show one time and you were nice to me the other topic that does get discussed somewhat is the fact that this song is actually a cover

Of an old blues record from 1929 and led zeppelin did give writing credit to the original artist memphis mini although the credits still got it partly wrong because minnie’s duo partner kansas joe mccoy also co-wrote it but zeppelin still gets points for trying and for not getting sued on this one by

The very artists to whom they were paying homage but that’s not our focus today we’re here for the guitars this is a song i’ve never really analyzed guitar wise until now but i should have known that if i took the time i’d uncover some crazy gems as

Always i have to say that studying this actually gave me a huge burst of creative energy this week that i’ve been channeling into all kinds of other stuff jimmy page was never just searching for the right guitar part for a song he was always going for something magical and evocative

Something that would pull you in and take you on a trip so this nerd journey of mine turned into a major investigation trying to figure out what exactly is going on with these guitars zeppelin seems somehow both over documented and shrouded in mystery at the exact same time

All i originally wanted to do here was figure out if paige was playing a 12-string guitar or not but i wound up in a labyrinth of lore and information and misinformation that led if you will to this topic for one thing page never really talks about this

Guitar part in any of his interviews like everyone else he’s always focusing on the drums and the production also of all the tons of guitar tutorials for this song on youtube none of them reference the actual part that paige plays on the record at first i was confused about this but

Then it made total sense because as you’ll see it’s completely impractical to play it the way he does especially on a live gig and maybe that’s why he barely ever played this song live the good news is that some tutorials do teach you more usable ways to play it in a band setting

And i’ll link to a really in-depth one by gretchen men from zepparella in the description lastly the guitar blends into the mix on this song a little more than usual for led zeppelin the main conversation seems to be going on between the huge drum groove and robert plants harmonica

Which is upfront and heavily distorted with backwards echo and takes up a lot of space so the guitar is a little deceptive because it’s not that prominent for much of the song now here’s how i remember the riff in my head it’s nothing like his actual

Part it’s based on what i would think jimmy page might play but not what he really did and this is probably how you hear it too maybe if someone called this song on the bandstand or at a jam session this is what i would play [Applause]

So the version in my brain would have been fairly distorted and it would have doubled the baseline but that’s not it it’s not even close as we’ll see an important production note on when the levee breaks is that the whole song was slowed down on tape

After it was recorded so the version we know is slower and lower than the way the band originally played it in my opinion this was a typical stroke of production genius on page’s part because slowing down the track exaggerates the kind of surreal sludgy groove that it has and

All the instruments are resonating a little lower than they should because they’re actually slowed down this is relevant to the guitar discussion because it lowers the song’s key and it makes it harder to figure out what the guitar tuning really was in the original key of whatever it was on the album

The song is in the ballpark of the key of f and the tempo hovers around 71 72 bpm originally it must have been at least an f sharp if not g and around 76 bpm or even faster which is very hard to picture on this song but whatever the original key was

In this video we’ll be referring to it as the key of f which is where we’re all used to hearing it on the record so let’s talk about what we hear in the guitar there are some seeming contradictions in the part we hear some doubled strings we hear non-doubled strings we hear pick

Finger picking heavy effects no effects at times is it two guitar parts is it one part what guitar is he playing here’s what we actually know number one paige’s sound for a classic hard rock song the guitar is surprisingly clean with very little amp overdrive and it’s a ringy twangy tone

The whole hard rock vibe of the track is actually coming from the drums page is playing almost pure country blues on this whole thing there are no heavy or fuzzy guitar sounds until the slide melody starts way into the song Number two the guitar itself it definitely sounds like a 12 string a lot of the time and paige is known to have used two different 12 strings on this album uh vox and a fender and even though i have this double neck here and tribute

To mr page he actually didn’t get one of these until after led zeppelin 4 was out and he got it so that he could play the 12 and six string parts of the songs on stage during the same song like stairway to heaven but there’s one caveat to the 12 string thing mainly

I never once hear a high third string octave like you normally notice on a 12 string guitar but rather just a single regular tuned third string it really makes sense though because the classic high octave sound you hear on birds and beatles records would be way too bright and shiny for the darker

Vibe of this track so i actually took that string off the guitar and now it sounds much closer and just to add to the confusion there’s a tape flanging effect off and on throughout the guitar part which can almost help you get there on a on a six-string guitar if you use a

Flanger pedal but not quite and for sure you need a slide because if you’ve been avoiding slide like me then this is a good excuse to get into it you’re gonna need one number three the tuning here’s where it gets wild people always say that this song is tuned to an open g

And then slowed down to open f or a crazy f tuning like f a c f a c or something or other but that isn’t what we’re hearing on the original track those tunings can absolutely help you play this song in a band but you can’t play paige’s actual part

To play it like he does i’m pretty sure you need to be an open e with a capo at the first fret for an open f tuning this is challenging because uh capo makes the action too low to play slide so you keep buzzing out on the frets

So i had to crank my action up really high for this song in the original key of f-sharp say the capo would have had to be on the second fret before they slowed the tape down but for us it’s f so capo on the first fret

And now it gets even weirder this part only sounds right and is a lot easier to play if you tune the doubled high d string down to a fifth instead of the usual octave so normally the fourth string or the d string on a 12 would sound like this and then

The octave string would be way up here but what we have here what i’m pretty sure is happening is that they’re they sound like this so the two d strings quote unquote are not playing the same pitch and octave apart the way they normally would the high one is playing a fifth

Which in the key of f is a c note so it’s like a droning power chord on one string really two strings the whole time this was a huge discovery for me it’s not that surprising at all that paige would be into weird tunings for one thing

Both he and robert plant were kind of obsessed with joni mitchell at the time as was everyone else this same album has the song going to california which is sort of their ode to joni and she was famous for using a different tuning in almost every song

Which influenced a lot of other artists including mr page so what i’m trying to say is that it sounds to me like paige played an open e tuned 12 string electric guitar with one string taken off and one detuned down to a fifth capote at the second

Fret for f sharp played with a pick and fingers using a slide through a clean amp with almost no distortion and then they slowed the whole tape down to f oh yeah and then add heavy tape flanging just for fun think about the creative mindset

Of that all of this on a part that’s kind of in the background and friends i am not saying that this is what he actually did it was 50 years ago so we’ll never know the truth even page might not know what i am saying is that this is the only way

I could get it to sound anything like the record so that’s my big disclaimer okay so there are four main parts to the song the big surprise is that the guitar never actually plays some of the big riffs in the usual zeppelin unison style that we expect it’s way more intricate

Than that and tricky to play part one the main riff There are a few home-grown ways to play this one of which i showed you a minute ago with the slide but as you can see i ended up not using the slide in the track i ended up bending with my second finger on that string on the doubled string

Because it just sounded closer to the record that way but you could play it with a slide and i’ll i’ll just show you in kind of like a slow motion version of it of what it sounds like [Applause] And of course it gets crazier there’s a little mystery slide guitar part on beat two and four of every bar during the main riff you have to listen super close but once you hear it it’s obvious here’s what it does so it’s going like You hear that and it might even be a whole chord it’s it’s hard to pick it out i i’m kind of hearing a whole chord not on a 12 string because you get too many high notes you get too much of that but it’s there and i’m almost 100 sure it’s an overdub

Maybe even an acoustic guitar but check this out you can actually play it all in one part if you’re the risk-taking type so i’m gonna butcher it for you [Applause] it’s really weird to play but it’s also kind of cool how much mojo is that though what’s up jimmy page

Part two is the slide section and the bass riff lots of cool stuff going on here it definitely sounds like a 12 string to me This is so cool as i mentioned before the second part of this big riff is never really played on the guitar the way you think it will be it’s all bass you remember it as a heavy low guitar riff but it’s not he seems to resist the urge

To play in unison with the bass like he does on so many other zeppelin riffs instead paige’s guitar part stays clean harmonizes chords with the bass and continues this chimey droning sound here’s the guitar part all by itself [Applause] And he does something notable and strange here he starts the riff with the f that would rub up against the e flat in the bass duna so it’s going down and it’s only a whole step apart and it would rub up against each other

If he held on to it any longer but it goes by so quickly you don’t hear it and then he ends the riff without playing the root instead he plays c the fifth on as many strings as possible so it’s So instead of going down and he’s going down except in tune i actually counted how many strings are playing a c note here six strings in total okay you’ve got one two the doubled second string then you’ve got the third string then you’ve got the detuned Fourth string octave which is now playing a c also and then you’ve got these guys including the fifth string which you don’t hear very much in this song so you end up with this wall of c And you hear this huge buildup resonating on that note and i wouldn’t be surprised if he double-tracked the whole thing on top of it if you listen to the track you’ll notice this like it’s like a big thing on c would i ever do this no way is it kind

Of wrong and weird yes would i change it never in a million years part three the chords section leading into the slide break now originally i thought it was played like this one d minor chord shape with the drone strings ringing all the way through it because you can hear them [Applause]

And that would totally work on a gig if i was playing it that’s probably what i would do during that section but listening closer i noticed that the chords had a lower voice in them like this [Applause] i was positive it was the other way until i noticed that little And that creates a problem because now you can’t play the drone note on the fourth string because it’s cut off by all these bar chords so basically it has to be an overdub and if so it’s carefully hidden and disguised as one guitar part using the same sound and the same

Panning in the stereo field so here’s closer to the way it sounds on the record All right and finally we have the slide break which is the closest thing to a solo in this tune and the only time we hear some distortion i had to use two overdrive pedals in sequence to get the right dirt for this tone i’ve got my black country customs

Tony ayami boost going into the broadcast which are my only two british pedals anyway it’s a lot of dirt and i love it [Applause] [Applause] [Applause] [Applause] That is all based around an open e blues lick that we all know because you hear it in every slide song But paige makes it his own by putting it over three chords you know he plays it over three different chords and it creates this uplifting moment where the gloom of this song kind of goes away for a minute in the clouds part and we get some hope maybe a little sunshine who knows

You would think that that would be it right of course you know it’s just it’s a it’s a it’s a blues lick that we’ve heard in a zillion different songs it’s already cool that he’s playing it over these three different chords but there is more because it’s jimmy page he does

Three little harmonies that i want to point out to you two of them are over the c chord which is the five so he goes [Applause] You hear that and you have to wait to play it until the chord hits because if you play it early it sounds weird It doesn’t work so that’s part of it and then uh the second time he does it he does it later it goes and that one’s cool because it makes the c into a c7 Which there’s no evidence of a c7 anywhere else in the song but paige is like why not a seven this is blues the third one which is probably my favorite is this little ghost note that happens on the high sort of climactic note of the song

He goes but instead of just playing that high note he puts this little ghost ghosty guy under it and it makes it sound like we’re going to the iv chord But we’re not we’re playing it over the one so it adds a sixth which is pretty weird and it’s one another one of those moments where it’s kind of wrong but oh so right if you play it without that little ghost note under it it doesn’t quite sound like when the levee breaks

Which leads me to my last thing which is this wild vibrato that paige puts on the guitar at the end i couldn’t even play this part on the double neck because they get the neck ends at the 15th fret and i was hitting the body with the slide trying to get that insane

Vibrato now to be honest with you i never actually nail it i never got that vibrato right it actually made me wonder if paige played it before they slowed the tape down because it has this woozy sort of drunk quality to it that reminds me of the vocal

Vibratos on uh strawberry fields forever which also had a slowed down tape anyway i tried to play it i never quite nailed it i got some of the wildness but i never got that slow speed and it’s wide folks [Applause] it’s like that it’s intense those are all the different ways

That paige makes this one little repeating slide lick into yet another treasure trove of coolness so mysteries abound you guys if you look for it it’s gonna be there if you go if you zoom in on pages stuff there’s always gonna be something that sets it

Apart and that really is the whole point of this video on this song led zeppelin we’re going for an apocalyptic slightly psychedelic take on country blues evoking images of despair and destruction and then these moments of light with the guitars you know people leaving their homes not knowing

Where to go and then this this whole other kind of contrasting sound and paige said that they did the whole mix in this song to make it sound like it was a storm swirling around robert plant’s vocals and they used all kinds of phasing and flanging and extreme panning and

Backwards echo to paint that picture but by sticking to classic country blues vocabulary and guitar page makes sure it never strays too far away from that old delta sound even as they’re rewriting the rules of modern record production all around it’s pretty friggin bananas in my opinion so

Two takeaways from all this for me number one paige is a genius as if we didn’t know that but even if he’s known for big riffs and flashy solos um that we all love some of his best work is blended into the tracks and number two even when he’s

Referencing a traditional style like this page keeps it creative and weird with the guitar i would never have written most of these parts i get way too precious about correct chords and notes and discrepancies with the bass and page sets a great example for us here of the freedom

To turn all that off and just trust the overall vibe and the sound of the band and the results as they say speak for themselves so for those of you who made it through this whole thing congratulations now i know who my people are please let me know some other topics you’d like

To explore in future episodes of rocksplaining and until then see you next time folks don’t forget to like and subscribe and uh say hi in the comments leave your thoughts Onwards You