CODA
Led Zeppelin (1982)
Led Zeppelin – We're Gonna Groove – Remaster Led Zeppelin – Poor Tom – Remaster Led Zeppelin – I Can't Quit You Baby – Remaster Led Zeppelin – Walter's Walk – Remaster Led Zeppelin – Ozone Baby – Remaster Led Zeppelin – Darlene – Remaster Led Zeppelin – Bonzo's Montreux – Remaster Led Zeppelin – Wearing and Tearing – Remaster
a weird little record, because it isn’t really “about” one thing in the way Physical Graffiti or Houses of the Holy can feel like a statement. It’s basically the sound of Led Zeppelin’s attic being opened after the band was already over. Released in 1982, two years after John Bonham died and Zeppelin dissolved, Coda was assembled from unreleased recordings spanning different periods of the band. So emotionally, even though most of the songs weren’t written as a farewell, the album inevitably feels like one. The title itself is perfect: in music, a coda is the concluding passage after the main body of a piece. And the track sequence you’ve got tells a surprisingly coherent story. “We’re Gonna Groove” opens like nothing is wrong. Young, ferocious Zeppelin. Swagger, lust, momentum. It feels like a band walking into the room absolutely certain of itself. “Poor Tom” is stranger and older-world sounding — almost Appalachian Zeppelin. It’s a little murder-ballad tragedy: betrayal, jealousy, violence, consequence. It already introduces the idea that underneath all that macho Zeppelin power, things can go very badly. Then “I Can’t Quit You Baby” is pure obsession. I know this is hurting me. I know I should stop. I cannot stop. That theme runs through a ridiculous amount of Zeppelin, but here, on Coda, it almost sounds retrospective: addiction to love, sex, the road, the band, the life. “Walter’s Walk” jumps years forward. Now the sound is harsher, nervous, almost proto-punk. Zeppelin no longer sounds like the invincible young band from 1969. There’s tension in it. Then you get the late-period trio: “Ozone Baby” “Darlene” “Wearing and Tearing” These are fascinating because they show Zeppelin trying to figure out what the hell Led Zeppelin was supposed to be around 1978–80. Punk had happened. New wave had happened. The gigantic dinosaur-rock era they helped create was being challenged. And their response wasn’t to become delicate. It was basically: Fine. You want fast? Watch this. Especially “Wearing and Tearing.” That song is Zeppelin playing with almost punk-level aggression — frantic, jagged, pissed-off, alive. But sitting right before that is the emotional center of the whole record: “Bonzo’s Montreux.” John Bonham alone. Drums, percussion, electronics — Jimmy Page later constructed the finished piece around Bonham's recording. There are no words because there don't need to be any. In the context of the album, it becomes almost a memorial. And that changes what Coda feels like. Because suddenly all the other tracks sound like ghosts. Young Zeppelin. Blues Zeppelin. Folk Zeppelin. Experimental Zeppelin. Late Zeppelin. Bonham. Then one last violent burst with “Wearing and Tearing.” And silence. So if I had to reduce the album to one thought, it would be: Look what this thing was. Look at all the different creatures it became. And now it’s gone. What makes Coda oddly moving is that the band never intended most of these songs to carry that meaning. Death and chronology imposed the meaning afterward. It isn't really Led Zeppelin saying goodbye. It’s more like walking through the empty house after everybody has left and finding things they forgot in the rooms. And, Wolf, that makes it a much sadder album than its actual music sounds.