FM dj's always played "Heartbreaker" right along with "Living Loving Maid" right in line after it as one piece of music. I cannot hear them divided like this without some aural pain. lol
Heartbreaker, for me, is the epicenter for the birth of "Heavy Metal." Whole Lotta Love + Heartbreaker from this album marked the beginning of the 1970's super-heavy sound.
Totally agree, others pioneered hard rock/metal before them BUT they really brought the sound to a whole new level, damn they sounded better in a recording studio from half a century ago than anyone has in many decades. Jimmy Page is an all time musical genius with the guitar and the studio, he is our Mozart.
Guess you didn’t read all the comments saying you should listen to this paired with the next song. It’s almost painful to NOT hear it moving directly into Living Loving Maid. Our ears expect it.
One of the heaviest sounding tracks ever and the guitar solo has to be one of the best ever! Amazing tune, in concert was not as perfect BUT incredible improv that laid waste to many an audience. Great stuff, my favorite Zeppelin album, they went for the throat on this one! 🎵🎸🎤🎹♩
"with a purple umbrella and a fifty cent hat" whoops I got a little ahead of myself there, lol. Page and Jones both being highly sought after studio musicians really contributes to the zeppelin sound and production. JPJ's bass line on this track is just Nasty!
Totally classic, signature Zep as you say. What gets me in this song is Jones's saucy bass sliding in main verses. Thick! Still waiting for your dive into Tool. 🌀
JPJ is doubling Page’s guitar with a heavily distorted bass riff. JP’s heavy tone is classic Les Paul through either a Marshall or Plexi. And it’s somehow both super heavy and funky at the same time. That’s Zep’s secret sauce!
I'm a guitarist, but when I play this song, outside of the main guitar riff, I basically play along with JPJ. His bass rules this song. He's got some major distortion on that bass. From what I heard, Ihe used a Leslie 145 on tremolo. That chugging sound at the beginning is a very sensitive mic, very close to the upper horn, getting blasted by the wind. The mic was primarily used in the upper horn (not near the bottom drum rotor), which explains the brittle, yet overdriven tone!
Led Zeppelin were recorded by two brothers, Glyn and Andy Johns. Both of whom were very experimental, some of their recording techniques are closely guarded secrets!
When they play this live the guitar solo goes on for much longer and Jimmy adds so much improv, including some classical music played on his guitar. He pioneered some tapping techniques if I’m not mistaken, even inspired Van Halen with a live version of this solo. Someone can confirm if I’m correct about that
With LZ, there are a handful of songs where some live versions far exceed the studio quality. Heartbreaker is one example. In my opinion, the Live album "How the West Was Won" from 1972 has the best version of Heartbreaker, Moby Dick, That's the Way, and Over The Hills and Far Away. Unlike other bands, LZ plays songs differently live, and even a little differently every time they perform it. Most of their songs are indeed better in studio, but specifically the ones I've mentioned are better in those particular versions. I highly recommend at least checking out the ones I've mentioned off camera, if not on camera. Trust
I don't think Annie was his soul mate, lol. Calling him by another guys name in the middle of a passionate moment is a punch to the gut. That guitar solo in the middle is out of this world. 'Livin Loving Maid' sort of melds into Heartbreaker. Thanks for the shout out! Still having fun with your analysis of all this great music.
When Jim Morrison was alive he had been working on a spoken word album of his poetry which he had never completed. In 1978, the doors took the recordings and mixed them into an album called "An American prayer". This album is a real lost classic. If you are interested in hearing Jim Morrison's poetry and how it was used in his writing for the door songs, check out this album. You may not want to do it as a reaction Piece because it is quite explicit.
When you do living living maid, make sure to go back substantially into this song so you can experience the combination. That's the way it is always played and I'm positive it was meant to be listened to that way. It's just strange as can be to have it stop and not go immediately into that next beat, laugh.
In the recording studio it is normal to do dubbing which entails putting one guitar on top of the other which you of course can do in the studio but not live since Pagey only has two hands
Hey Bobby, curious what you think. Do you think it's better to play this and Living Loving Maid as a pair like they do on the radio? Or to play them separately as they were originally intended?
@@deadchannel3274 well they are meant to be played together, the same for the MSG 1973 live version of The Song Remains the Same/The Rain Song....but its not the end of the world lol
I used to be in Live Zeppelin, the best damn tribute ever! When I first learned this (also the first time I heard it) I smirked when that vocal came in. Cool as.
Some knowledge I learned about recording: The sound of two guitars here and in other songs with only one guitar player comes from the so called doubling, the same guitar part gets recorded two separate times with slightly (or sometimes huge) different settings on the sound options of the amp. Because this and the slightly different playing of the riffs this "fills up" the tone and sounds "fatter". The bassist John Paul Jones was as I know one of the first bassists who used an overdrive effect, which "fattens" up the sound in addition.
The guitar sound: Page had his Gibson Les Paul modified so he could control the phasing of the pickups. Creates a very thick sound. He did not use much actual overdrive distortion, just very high volume which creates overtones and natural distortion.
I'm glad you didn't play this with Living Loving Maid (She's Just a Woman) immediately following. US radio stations (I don't know about UK) used to do that all the time and Jimmy hated it. He said the songs had nothing in common and didn't sound alike so he couldn't understand why they'd be played together. I suspect it was because Heartbreaker ends so abruptly, that it felt natural to let the next song run right after it like Queen's We Will Rock You/We Are the Champions, that way the radio personality had about 7 minutes before they had to play something else. Yes, you're correct that the solo was done after. Here's a quote from Jimmy to Guitar World in 1998: "The interesting thing about the solo is that it was recorded after we had already finished 'Heartbreaker' - it was an afterthought. That whole section was recorded in a different studio and it was sort of slotted in the middle." Edited to add: I never considered Annie as being a prostitute. I always thought of her as a free-spirited woman who went about and did what she wanted while men flocked to her as she went around breaking hearts.
I agree. Even though radio stations often did, it wasn't Zeppelin's intention that they be "linked" evidenced by the fact that they performed Heartbreaker a lot but never Living Loving Maid.
@@jmar7631 For a different reason, though: Jimmy refused to play Living Loving Maid live. As to playing both together, I feel it’s just because they’re back-to-back on the album and they flow together so well, plus that’s the way we always heard them (since we grew up playing albums, not singles). Honestly, I feel this way about all zeppelin songs, they all flowed together, like the ordering was ordained from above and the belonged that way. This is also why Mothership never felt quite right. 😊
Jones is picking away on bass and coming through (what sounds to my ears) to be a Fender Virbrolux amp. He could very well keep up with Jimmy and is an extremely experienced session cat himself. Essentially, he was the bands’ second guitarist.
I don't think she's a hooker. In the 60s a goodlooking rocker guy who wasn't famous didn't need that and in fact it was not cool. BUT, in London, New York and my stomping grounds San Francisco and even Austin Texas there were THE TOP CHICKS who would have several guys at a time and you needed to "Lay some money down" for concerts, clothes, clubs etc. Look.at Patty Boyd (Layla) and George Harrison/ Eric Clapton. Anita von Pallenberg and Marianne Faithful and Mick/ Keith tension. Jerry Hall publicly dumped Bryan Ferry for Mick.
Syed, really appreciate your thoughtful and insightful reactions. You’re seeing a lot of comments of the linkage of Heartbreaker/Living Loving Maid etc. Going track by track for Zep is awesome but can’t ignore the Jimmy Page album concept where some songs flow into each other or there are interesting fade outs (like Thank You). When you get there, on III you have Friends/Celebration Day and when you get Over the Hills and Far Away on Houses of the Holy make sure you listen to whole thing before cutting to final comments.
Without listening more closely, what I think you are noticing in that riff was either one guitar layer that has been doubled through a very slight delay to add a little thickness and then they end up getting panned pretty far left and right. It could possibly be a second guitar layer that's just played really close but I really don't think so. What you have to really take into account is that bass. It's epic on this song. What you were hearing as that really low undertone was the low residence and warmth of his bass guitar but you were probably missing the staccato attacks on it that just become part of the overall mix. But at any rate, he's playing right along in unison with the guitar. So with the guitar having that effect on it and the bass tracking right along with it at a much lower frequency and warmth, it creates an absolutely killer riff.
