The song Kashmir by 1970's band Led Zeppelin is an all time favourite song of mine. I have fond memories listening to in on long road trips with my dad cranking the album Mothership out our crappy car speakers but this song always mystified me. I'm doing a teardown to analyse the following 4 aspects of the track.
The Song structure.
The instrumentation.
The tempo and it's significance.
The lyrics and their delivery.
Song Structure:
To look closer at the song structure I brought a copy into Pro tools and cut it up into it's sections, intros (Blue), verses (Green), chorus' (Red) and bridges (Purple.
As you can see the song like many other Zeppelin songs don't really follow traditional song structures. This is what makes their songs (including Kashmir) so unique. The song ebbs and flows and they all stay in time but there's no simplistic structure such as the classic ABABCB. The chorus' are quite strange as well containing no structured lyrics, they act as a instrumental hook between verses. Typically songs use the chorus as their 'hook' and contain the catchiest lyrics and riffs. Led Zeppelin however used the power of their orchestra and sublime riffs as their hook and left their lyrics for deeper meaning through the verses. While the song lasts a full 8:33 minutes it never loses your attention. Even with repeating parts again and again the thing that changes is the instrumentation throughout the song.
Instrumentation:
The reason Led Zeppelin was such a huge name in the late 60's to early 80's and of course still a house hold name today was the use and mastery of their instruments. Their riffs, drum fills, bass lines and of course magical vocals put Zeppelin on the map and Kashmir takes it one step further. Adding a literal orchestra of strings and horns to the mix makes Kashmir the absolute joy to listen to that it is. Of course in this song is the usual line up of:
Jimmy Page - lead guitar
John Bonham - Drums
John Paul Jones - Bass and keyboard
Robert Plant - Vocals
As I mentioned earlier the instrumentation evolves throughout the track. The intro and verses' are the same through with the guitar and bass on the left, drums up the middle with the vocals and the strings dominating the right. Also after the first 2 verses a counter string line gets added on the left hand side adding a deeper slightly more dramatic feel to the poetical sections (around 2:00). The chorus as I mentioned before is unique because of its lack of vocals but the instrumental hook more than makes up for it containing the full power of all the instrumentation including now horns and doubling the guitar riffs. This section is repeated 7 times throughout the track but it never loses its power due to the huge stereo image of this orchestra and rock band melting your face. It's a magical mix of horns and strings the the thumping drum line from Bonham and expert guitar riffs from Page captivates your attention. The bridges through this song are also extremely different from the rest of the song. The first bridge (starting around 2:10) slows down a little and contains doubled strings and a harmony from Page. The next two bridges contain Mellotron strings playing high in the left side and the real strings counter on the right. Horns through these parts also accent key moment adding to the power. Finally the last few verses contain horns ending the strings section in the bottom right playing a low fading note. In the final and fading bridge Bonham begins to drum much more enthusiastically and in this section you can really hear the Eventide phaser that his kit got run through in post. This adds a psychedelic sound to his longer drum fills and cymbal crashes. The instrumentation through the whole song expands and grows captivating your attention as the song continues. However not just the instruments change throughout the song the tempo fluctuates as well.
Tempo:
The tempo in Kashmir is extremely tricky traditionally slower than most rock songs at the time. Having a BPM of 82 makes a huge impact on the way Kashmir plays and if you've listened to it by now I'm sure you'll agree. Every time I listen to this song i find myself bobbing up and down the the slow, dedicated and powerful rhythm. John Bonham does an outstanding job of keeping the band in check with this tricky tempo and many times Robert Plant mentions his frustration with singing in time with.
“It was an amazing piece of music to write to, and an incredible challenge for me, the whole deal of the song is… not grandiose, but powerful: it required some kind of epithet, or abstract lyrical setting about the whole idea of life being an adventure and being a series of illuminated moments.”
A fact I didn't know about the song until now was that Bonham was playing his kit in 4/4 time but the verses were playing in 6/8 by everyone else. Then during the chorus' and bridges changed to 4/4 then back to 6/8 for the verses. If you're not musically inclined like myself that doesn't mean much but changing time signatures on the fly is no easy feat. I won't go too in depth as to why but this is why singing was so tricky as most of the lyrics are sung during the verses in a different timing to the drums. As I'm sure you can imagine now thats no easy feat and Zeppelin is known to struggle with this song live from time to time.
Even in the first minute of this video from their Celebration Day show you can see the focus on trying to keep the tempo right and there are a few parts slightly out of time. However this doesn't detract from the power of the song. I have a strange way of picturing music like this. I always imagine a group of horses galloping next to each other and one person holding the reins. In this case Bonham is holding the reins with the drum kit trying desperately to keep the horses together, once one of them gets further ahead and behind its chaos. I know thats a strange analogy but when i listen to Zeppelin or Hendrix I can always picture the different players in the song as horses and the drums as the reins. I digress, the tempo in this track is the thing that makes it stand out the most, slowing down and being deliberate is that gives this song the feeling is has. It's the difference between walking and stomping you have to slow down to give time for the power.
Lyrics:
The lyrics in this song revolve surprising not around Kashmir a state in India but rather around the roads in Southern Morocco. Page said,
“It was a single-track road which neatly cut through the desert. Two miles to the east and west were ridges of sand rock. It looked like you were driving down a channel, this dilapidated road, and there was seemingly no end to it.”
The lyrics are as follows:
Oh, let the sun beat down upon my face And stars fill my dream I'm a traveler of both time and space To be where I have been To sit with elders of the gentle race This world has seldom seen They talk of days for which they sit and wait All will be revealed Talk in song from tongues of lilting grace Sounds caress my ear And not a word I heard could I relate The story was quite clear Oh, baby, I been blind Oh, yeah, mama, there ain't no denyin' Oh, ooh yes, I been blind Mama, mama, ain't no denyin', no denyin' All I see turns to brown As the sun burns the ground And my eyes fill with sand As I scan this wasted land Try to find, try to find the way I feel
Oh, pilot of the storm who leaves no trace Like sorts inside a dream Leave the path that led me to that place Yellow desert stream Like Shangri-la beneath the summer moon I will return again As the dust that floats finds you We're moving through Kashmir Oh, father of the four winds fill my sails Cross the sea of years With no provision but an open face Along the straits of fear Oh, when I want, when I'm on my way, yeah And my feet wear my fickle way to stay Ooh, yeah yeah, oh, yeah yeah, But I'm down oh, yeah yeah, oh, yeah Yeah, but I'm down, so down Ooh, my baby, oh, my baby Let me take you there Come on, oh let me take you there Let me take you there
Originally titled "Driving to Kashmir" the songs revolves heavily around the adventure of driving on open desert roads while touring as evident by "Oh, let the sun beat down upon my face - and stars fill my dream - I'm a traveler of both time and space - To be where I have been." The delivery of the lyrics to me is the most important part. As Plant said "...it required some kind of epithet, or abstract lyrical setting about the whole idea of life being an adventure and being a series of illuminated moments.” The lyrics in the track come across as poetry, still sung but the structure of the presentation constantly changing like everything else in the track. Plant's delivery made this song magical, adding the semi chaotic nature of this song like everything was about to fall apart and be out of time but never allowing it to do so. The lyrics fit the song like a glove and give it the abstract nature that Zeppelin is famous for.
References
Hann, M. (2015). Jimmy Page on Led Zeppelin's Kashmir: 'You need time to catch your breath after'. [online] The Guardian. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/music/musicblog/2015/feb/27/jimmy-page-on-led-zeppelin-kashmir [Accessed 24 Nov. 2018].
Owsinski, B. (2015). Led Zeppelin "Kashmir" Song Analysis. [online] Bobbyowsinski.blogspot.com. Available at: http://bobbyowsinski.blogspot.com/2015/05/led-zeppelin-kashmir-song-analysis.html#axzz5YC2ZNbx6 [Accessed 24 Nov. 2018].
Wall, M. (2014). The Story Behind The Song: Kashmir by Led Zeppelin. [online] Classic Rock Magazine. Available at: https://www.loudersound.com/features/the-story-behind-the-song-kashmir-by-led-zeppelin [Accessed 24 Nov. 2018].
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