Physical Graffiti

Untitled

Physical Graffiti is the sixth album by the English hard rock band Led Zeppelin. It is a double album which was released on February 24, 1975. Physical Graffiti was the band's first release on their own Swan Song Records label.

Recording history

The recording sessions for Physical Graffiti initially took place in November 1973 at Headley Grange in East Hampshire, England. For these recordings, the band utilised Ronnie Lane's Mobile Studio. However, these sessions came to a halt quickly and the studio time was turned over to the band Bad Company, who used it to record songs for their forthcoming album, Straight Shooter. In an interview he gave in 1975, Jimmy Page explained the reason for this abrupt cessation of recording:

It took a long time for this album mainly because when we originally went in to record it, John Paul Jones wasn't well and we had to cancel the time . . . everything got messed up. It took three months to sort the situation out.

However, according to Led Zeppelin author Dave Lewis,

it later emerged that Jones had wanted to quit the band and take up a position as choirmaster at Winchester Cathedral. Peter Grant urged caution, suggesting that Jones was overwrought from the incessant touring and should take a rest from Zeppelin for a few weeks. Jones changed his mind and sessions resumed at Headley Grange after the Christmas holidays.

Once they had reconvened, the band recorded eight tracks at Headley Grange in January and February 1974, which were engineered by Ron Nevison. Vocalist Robert Plant later referred to these eight tracks as "the belters":

We got eight tracks off ... and a lot of them were really raunchy. We did some real belters with live vocals, off-the-wall stuff that turned out really nice.

Similar to the sessions for the previous two albums, the decision to record at in the informal environs Headley Grange provided an opportunity for the band to improvise and develop material along the way. As Plant commented:

Some of the tracks we assembled in our own fashioned way of running through a track and realising before we knew it that we had stumbled on something completely different.

Because the eight tracks extended beyond the length of a conventional album, at some point it was decided to include several songs which had been recorded during the sessions for previous Led Zeppelin albums. The instrumental "Bron-Yr-Aur" was recorded in July 1970 at Island Studios, London, for Led Zeppelin III. "Night Flight" and "Boogie with Stu" were recorded at Headley Grange and "Down by the Seaside" at Island Studios, all for Led Zeppelin IV. "The Rover" and "Black Country Woman" were recorded at the same sessions as "D'yer Mak'er" at Stargroves using the Rolling Stones Mobile Studio in May 1972. "Houses of the Holy" was also recorded in May 1972, but at Olympic Studios. The group's fifth album, Houses of the Holy, took its title from this song despite the decision not to include the song on that album.

According to engineer Ron Nevison, the decision to expand the album to include songs from previous sessions was not part of the original planning:

I never knew that Physical Graffiti was going to be a double album. When we started out we were just cutting tracks for a new record. I left the project before they started pulling in songs from Houses of the Holy and getting them up to scratch. So I didn't know it was a double [album] until it came out.

Additional overdubs were added and the final mixing of the album was performed in October 1974 by Keith Harwood at Olympic Studios, London.

Physical Graffiti is the only Led Zeppelin album to feature bassist/keyboardist John Paul Jones playing additional guitar on some tracks.

In the opinion of Led Zeppelin vocalist Robert Plant, of all the albums they released, Physical Graffiti represented the band at its most creative and most expressive.

Album cover

The album designer, Peter Corriston, was looking for a building that was symmetrical with interesting details, that was not obstructed by other objects and would fit the square album cover. He said:

We walked around the city (New York City) for a few weeks looking for the right building. I had come up a concept for the band based on the tenement, people living there and moving in and out. The original album featured the building with the windows cut out on the cover and various sleeves that could be placed under the cover, filling the windows with the album title, track information or liner notes.

The two buildings photographed for the album cover are located at 96 and 98 St. Mark's Place in New York City. But to enable it to fit, the building which is actually a five-story building, had to be cropped out. So for the album cover it became a four-story building instead. The buildings used on the cover were the same that Keith Richards and Mick Jagger were in front of in the Rolling Stones music video "Waiting on a Friend". There is currently a used clothing store in the basement called Physical Graffiti.

• Inner disc cover 1
  Inner disc cover 1
• Inner disc cover 2
  Inner disc cover 2
• Middle insert front
  Middle insert front
• Middle insert back
  Middle insert back

The original album jacket for the LP included 4 covers made up of 2 inners (for each disc), a middle insert cover and an outer cover. The inner covers depict various objects and people (including photos of the band members in drag) on each window. The middle insert cover is white with all the album track listings and recording information etc. The outer cover has die-cut windows on the building, so when the middle cover is wrapped around the inner covers and slid into the outer cover, the title of the album is shown on the front cover, spelling out the name "Physical Graffiti".

Philadelphia comedy-punk band the Dead Milkmen spoofed the album cover and title on their 1990 album Metaphysical Graffiti

Sales and influence

A review in Rolling Stone magazine referred to Physical Graffiti as Led Zeppelin's "bid for artistic respectability", adding that the only competition the band had for the title of 'World's Best Rock Band' were The Rolling Stones and The Who. The album was a massive commercial and critical success, reaching #1 on Billboard's Pop Albums chart, and has proven to be one of the most popular releases by the group, selling 16 million copies in the United States alone. Physical Graffiti was the first album to go platinum on advance orders alone. Shortly after the release of Physical Graffiti, all previous Led Zeppelin albums simultaneously re-entered the top-200 album chart. In 1998 Q magazine readers voted Physical Graffiti the 28th greatest album of all time; in 2000 Q placed it at number 32 in its list of the 100 Greatest British Albums Ever; and in 2001 the same magazine named it as one of the 50 Heaviest Albums Of All Time. In 2003 the TV network VH1 named it the 71st greatest album ever. Rolling Stone ranked it #70 on their list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. Plant has stated Physical Graffiti is his favourite album.

Track listing

Side one

1. "Custard Pie" (Jimmy Page, Robert Plant) – 4:13
2. "The Rover" (Page, Plant) – 5:37
3. "In My Time of Dying" (Page, Plant, John Paul Jones, John Bonham) – 11:05

Side two

1. "Houses of the Holy" (Page, Plant) – 4:02
2. "Trampled Under Foot" (Page, Plant, Jones) – 5:37
3. "Kashmir" (Page, Plant, Bonham) – 8:32

Side three

1. "In the Light" (Page, Plant, Jones) – 8:46
2. "Bron-Yr-Aur"* (Page) – 2:06
3. "Down by the Seaside" (Page, Plant) – 5:13
4. "Ten Years Gone" (Page, Plant) – 6:32

Side four

1. "Night Flight" (Jones, Page, Plant) – 3:36
2. "The Wanton Song" (Page, Plant) – 4:07
3. "Boogie with Stu" (Bonham, Jones, Page, Plant, Ian Stewart, Ritchie Valens**) – 3:53
4. "Black Country Woman" (Page, Plant) – 4:24
5. "Sick Again" (Page, Plant) – 4:42

* Some cassette versions of the album place "Bron-Yr-Aur" immediately after "Kashmir", presumably to make each side of the cassette last approximately the same amount of time.

** Credited to "Mrs. Valens, mother of Ritchie Valens". According to Jimmy Page, since the jam leaned heavily on "Ooh My Head" by the late Ritchie Valens, it was decided to give credit to his mother "because we heard she never received any royalties from any of her son's hits, and Robert did lean on that lyric a bit. So what happens? They tried to sue us for all of the song! We had to say bugger off".

Note: Physical Graffiti contains both the longest and shortest studio recordings by Led Zeppelin. "In My Time of Dying" clocks in at 11 minutes 5 seconds and "Bron-Yr-Aur" is 2 minutes 6 seconds.

Personnel

• Jimmy Page – acoustic and electric guitar, mandolin, producer
• Robert Plant – harmonica, vocals, acoustic guitar on "Boogie with Stu"
• John Paul Jones – bass, organ, piano, electric piano, mellotron, guitar, mandolin, VCS3 synthesizer
• John Bonham – drums, percussion

Additional personnel

• Ian Stewart – piano on "Boogie with Stu"
• George Chkiantz – engineer
• Peter Grant – producer, executive producer
• Keith Harwood – engineer, mixing
• Andy Johns – engineer
• Eddie Kramer – engineer, mixing
• Ron Nevison – engineer
• Mike Doud – artwork, design, cover design
• Peter Corriston – artwork, design, cover design
• Elliot Erwitt – photography
• Dave Heffernan – illustrations
• B.P. Fallon – photography
• Roy Harper – photography

CD Mastering engineers

• Barry Diament - original CD (mid-1980s)
• George Marino - remastered CD (1990)

Charts

Album

Year	Chart	Position
1975	Billboard Pop Albums (Billboard 200)	1

Singles

Year	Single	Chart	Position
1975	"Trampled Underfoot"	Billboard Pop Singles (Billboard Hot 100)	38

Certifications

Certifier	Certification	Sales
RIAA (U.S.)	16x Platinum	16,000,000