mama zep
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  • November 21st
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    Anonymous asked: why is the rain song such a big thing with you? i like it too,, but you take it to another level

    The age-old question. I already did this with the version from TSRTS but I don’t mind doing it with the studio version.

    • 0:00-0:07: JESUS FUCKING CHRIST. Have you ever heard a more beautiful into? Seriously. I mean stop and appreciate these seven seconds of sound that someone—a human—produced. I can’t process it sometimes. It’s so delicate and lilting and gorgeous and I honestly cannot handle that something so short—just seven seconds long—can draw you in like that in such a warm, musical embrace. I just can’t. 
    • 0:08-0:11: and then it drops slightly and you go down another level into the beauty of this intro. Let me remind you that it’s only been 11 seconds and by this point I’m already wanting to cry and/or tear my face off.
    • 0:13-0:17: and then it drops again and it’s even more beautiful.. I don’t know how something that’s already so fucking beautiful can get more and more transcendent and amazing as it progresses. It just keeps getting more and more loving and elegant and jesus christ.
    • 0:18-0:28: And then that melody that I love so much.. like waves of this beautiful, graceful thing washing over you.
    • 0:29-0:30: I’ve always loved this little part.. it reminds me of a tropical island or something. The way that note bends so seamlessly.
    • 0:31-1:01: And then Robert comes in and it’s like another instrument and I love how he tacks on another “oh-woo-oh” at the end of every line of song to match the flowing melody of the guitar. And you can hear him swallowing/smacking his lips at around 0:48 and 0:54.
    • 1:02-1:05: I LOVE HOW ROBERT SINGS “FIRE” AND “LOW”. I can’t explain it. 
    • 1:08-1:35: And there’s that haunting, cascading melodious thing just coming into the foreground, taking over and overpowering everything because it’s SO. FUCKING. BEAUTIFUL.
    • 1:36-1:41: I love this part.. it almost makes me nostalgic.. it reminds me of something old and classic and wistful almost.. it literally makes me yearn for something I can’t describe.. like a memory I’ve forgotten or a feeling I can’t feel anymore.
    • 1:42: I love that little twinkle of the piano in the background
    • 1:49-2:03: And then the mellotron and the guitar blend seamlessly and it’s twice as beautiful as before. Honestly, listen to this song and don’t tell me it doesn’t get inexplicably more gorgeous as it goes on. It blows my mind every time. 
    • 2:04: and then that seamlessly bended note again
    • 2:09: OK. This is where I start to sound psycho. But this little part.. at the end of every verse/stanza/measure whateveryouwanttocallit. Again at 2:19 and 2:21. It’s 3 notes first and then 5 notes the second time and then it repeats and I can’t even describe it but Jimmy repeats it throughout the song and it drives.me.crazy.
    • 2:42: And then those cascading notes again, folding over themselves.
    • 2:44: And that punch of guitar.. it gets more intense every time he does it.. like again at 2:47 and 2:50.
    • 2:50-3:21 God, I love this part. I just want to cry.
    • 3:23-3:36: And it drops again.. and then  climbs back up. It’s just taking you on this rollercoaster and you’re just traveling between peaks and valleys, from mountain to mountain, of sound and it’s up and down and you can’t even breathe the entire time. And the mellotron is so beautiful.
    • 3:38: And Bonzo finally comes in. He plays this part with brushes. BRUSHES. Can you think of a more delicate way to play a song as beautiful as this? NO. Because Led Zeppelin are genius and they figured out a way to make me cry at about every point in this song. 
    • 3:49: Beautiful bended note again.
    • 3:59: Love how Robert sings “keepers of the gloom”
    • 4:03-4:13: “Speak to me only with your eyes, it is to you I give this tune”.. Okay. If you don’t find that beautiful—the prose, the emotions, the fact that someone WROTE THAT—you have issues.
    • 4:25: Robert’s voice kind of cracks/gets raspy when he sings “time”.
    • 4:37-5:00: I can’t think of a better way to accent the melody than the things Robert does throughout this entire song. He uses his voice like another instrument and it might just sound like Robert being Robert, with all the “babe”-ing and “ooh”-ing he’s famous for.. but when you think about it.. this is just so calculated and formulaic and perfectly just compliments the other instruments, I almost forget it’s someone singing. It just integrates so beautifully.
    • 5:02: “OH!”… it just punches you in the gut as it picks up like that. And the guitar and mellotron and drums are just overpowering at this point in the background. Like the song is literally just crying with you.
    • 5:05: “talk.. talk.. talk…”… I’m writhing on the floor at this point.
    • 5:11-5:14: And the little thing the guitar does.. it builds up then scales back down and builds up again and then transitions into the next verse with Robert.
    • 5:18: That piano just materializing out of the background like that
    • 5:23: And that little scale up-down-up again from Jimmy.
    • 5:47: And then that bended note and it calms down again. I’m telling you.. this song is literally like an emotional roller-coaster, going up and down like that so perfectly.. it doesn’t cross the line between beautiful and power ballad-y like some songs do… it’s just continuously elegant and gorgeous the entire way through without it getting gimmicky.
    • 5:51: Love how Robert sings “emotion”
    • 6:01-6:17: These lyrics are so beautiful. I can’t believe a human brain came up with this.
    • 6:18-6:35: And then it gradually builds up with Robert leading the song… and then flows into that ridiculously gorgeous guitar cascade at 6:36 with those guitar ‘punches’ at 6:35 and 6:38 and 6:41 and 6:43 and then flows into the delicate part of the ending so perfectly.
    • 7:00 And that guitar. I just want to die. It climbs up and then back down at 7:10 and then 7:13 and then lingers there for a little bit until those final few moments of twinkling beauty
    • 7:33: And then the final strum. It’s so perfect.
    • JESUS CHRIST.

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    27. shrivedog said: Could it be that the song itself takes some listeners to a whole new level? Check out the “No Quarter” DVD/Video from 94 when Page/Plant do The Rain Song. Jimmy plays acoustic. They totally pull the audience in. You know they knew when they react
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    31. cooljeweledmoon reblogged this from walrusgumboot and added:
      i never thought it was even possible to begin to describe the beauty of the rain song until this right here
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    40. sixtabstothemoon said: you’re awesome
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    43. amnilyf said: you are beautiful in this analysis.
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    48. walrusgumboot posted this
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