{"id":743941,"date":"2026-08-20T10:22:10","date_gmt":"2026-08-20T10:22:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/743941\/"},"modified":"2026-08-20T10:22:10","modified_gmt":"2026-08-20T10:22:10","slug":"black-dog-by-led-zeppelin-the-story-behind-the-song","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/743941\/","title":{"rendered":"Black Dog by Led Zeppelin: The Story Behind The Song"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cIt is good, isn\u2019t it?\u201d said Jimmy Page<\/a> of Led Zeppelin<\/a>\u2019s fourth album. \u201cYou get the feeling of the creativity of this band. It\u2019s just coming in with full force.\u201d<\/p>\n

That force was never more evident than on the album\u2019s opening track, the mighty Black Dog. Based on a cartwheeling riff bassist John Paul Jones<\/a> had been \u2018inspired\u2019 to develop after listening to the similarly shaped Tom Cat by Muddy Waters<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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Jones had scrawled the idea down on a train home from a rehearsal at Page\u2019s boathouse in Berkshire. \u201cMy dad had taught me this very easy notation system using note values and numbers,\u201d Jones told Mojo in 2007, \u201cso I wrote it on a bit of paper on the train.\u201d<\/p>\n

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The track was named partly in punning reference to the source material, but mainly after an old black Labrador that hung around the gardens and kitchen at Headley Grange.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was an old dog,\u201d explained Page, \u201cYou know when they get the white whiskers round the nose?\u201d When he vanished one night, \u201cwe all thought he\u2019d been out on the tiles [because] when he got back he was just sleeping all day. And we thought: \u2018Oh, black dog\u2019 \u2013 cos we just called him black dog \u2013 \u2018he\u2019s been out on the razzle.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

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The almost impossible-to-copy rhythmic swing of the track (4\/4 time set against 5\/4) was a key indication of how far ahead of the rock game Led Zeppelin really were. It took a few attempts for the band to lock into its irregular groove.<\/p>\n

Led Zeppelin – Black Dog (Live at Madison Square Garden 1973) (Official Video) – YouTube
\n\"Led<\/p>\n

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\u201cIt was originally all in 3\/16 time,\u201d Jones recalled in Classic Rock, \u201cbut no one could keep up with that.\u201d Bonham, in particular, struggled the song\u2019s shifting rhythms. \u201cI told Bonzo he had to keep playing four-to-the-bar all the way through Black Dog,\u201d Jones said. \u201cIf you go through enough 5\/8s it arrives back on the beat.\u201d<\/p>\n

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For Plant, Black Dog summed up one way that Led Zep could work speedily and efficiently. \u201cSometimes John Paul would contribute the leading part of a song and then it would be a pretty quick arrangement of bits and pieces so that the song fitted together rather quickly,\u201d Plant said in Joe Smith\u2019s 1988 book Off The Record. And while bands such as Grand Funk Railroad<\/a> were touted as being successors to Zep\u2019s heavyweight crown, their approach was devoid of the grace and timing of something like Black Dog.<\/p>\n

While musos stroked their beards appreciatively over the peacocking riff and Plant\u2019s a cappella vocals, based on Fleetwood Mac<\/a>\u2019s Oh Well \u2013 for those in the know about Page\u2019s obsession with the occult, it was assumed the title referred to some Baskervilleesque hellhound, a belief underscored by lines like: \u2018Eyes that shine, burning red\/Dreams of you all through my head\u2026\u2019<\/p>\n

It was, of course, far more mundane than anyone actually imagined. But that didn\u2019t matter \u2013 as Black Dog proved, even Led Zeppelin\u2019s mundanity was more magical and mysterious than every other band\u2019s. Although you might require a master’s degree in maths and musical notation to appreciate that rhythm truly, Black Dog\u2019s real thrills are much more visceral. It remains an explosive, daring opener to a classic record.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cIt is good, isn\u2019t it?\u201d said Jimmy Page of Led Zeppelin\u2019s fourth album. \u201cYou get the feeling of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":743942,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[96,128,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-743941","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-entertainment","tag-music","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/743941","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=743941"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/743941\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/743942"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=743941"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=743941"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=743941"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}