LED ZEPPELIN Houses of the Holy (Atlantic)

I’m listening to Jimmy Page’s overdubbed guitar on “The Song Remains The Same.” It opens the album with a terrific surge of power, an intricate careen that speaks a little of both the Byrds and the Who at their best, and volumes of Jimmy Page’s continuing vitality. When Robert Plant’s vocal enters after Page’s extended attack it’s an abrupt change of mood and tempo, but the contrast works, Plant’s lazy drawl playing off Page’s insistence: “I had a dream - crazy dream . . . Sing out Hare Hare, dance the Hoochie Coo .. .”

Robert Plant, the original hippie, has been responsible for all of Led Zeppelin’s lyrics, and his peacelove doves and mushy stairways are all over Houses of the Holy. This is the first Zep set where they made the mistake of printing the lyrics; if they hadn’t, we might have missed gems like “I got my flower, I got my power,” or prime Rowan Brothers stuff like “Hare Hare” and “Singing in the Sunshine, laughing in the rain ...”