Black Dog

I’ve read in a few music magazines over the years that if you are a true Led Zeppelin fan, you “know” what the song “Black Dog” is really about.

To me it’s just a standard Zep rocker with Robert Plant wailing about some “little woman who won’t come my way” and Jimmy Page’s clunking riffs, you know the usual Zep sludge. Yet to hear these people makes it sound like there is some dark, sinister story behind the song. Anyone?

I’m a true LZ fan, and I “don’t know” what “black dog” is all about. So that part of their statement is untrue. Unless, of course, that’s the accepted definition of a “true” LZ fan, in which case I’ll have to say I do “know” what black dog is all about but if I told you I’d have to kill you.

My dog Sam told me to tell you this.

Uh . . ever consider Prozac, Nicky? Wonderful drug. Shuts those talking pups right up.

“Black Dog” is about sex.

Like 99.9% of all rock songs. :slight_smile:

Knowing Led Zeppelin, they probably ripped off the lyrics and chords from some obscure blues artist–I don’t know why it’s called “Black Dog”–but I’m guessing it’s derogatory to women…Jimmy Page was like that.


Gail
“Any major dude with half a heart surely will tell you, my friend–
Any minor world that breaks apart falls together again…”
-Steely Dan

I heard the song (which was on fourth album, untitled but generally referred to as “Led Zeppelin IV” or “Zoso” btw) is about Jimmy Page’s dislike towards fat women, but then again that’s just what I heard.


-Dave


“Life is infinitely stranger than the mind of man can imagine.”

  • A. Conan Doyle

Winston Churchill suffered from serious bouts with depression- in his diaries, he referred to depression as “the black dog.” I don’t know whether Churchill coined the phrase himself or merely popularized it, but “the Black Dog” is just a metaphor for depression, or “the blues.”

The song itself seems to be about lust, rather than depression… unless Plant is just feeling blue, because he’s drooling over an unattainable woman.

Well I just ran across a very wet street (in my socks) to go get a book out of my car. It’s called “Hammer of the Gods, The Led Zeppelin saga” (I recommend it for anyone who wants to know more about Led Zeppelin) It says in this book “With Jimmy producing and Andy Johns, as engineer, the recording process proceeded quickly. Some tracks were written in the studio. “Black Dog,” with it’s fire-one guitar pattern, was a riff that John Paul Jones had brought with him. A black dog wandered in and out while they were recording” That’s all the book says about it. But if any one wants to know about their songs or the rumors about them I suggest reading this book, it’s pretty good.


Formerly known as Nec3f on the AOL SDMB