10/23/2025
ON THIS DATE (49 YEARS AGO)
October 22, 1976 – Led Zeppelin: The Song Remains the Same is released.
# ALL THINGS MUSIC PLUS+ 4.5/5
# Allmusic 3/5 stars
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The Song Remains the Same is the soundtrack live album of the concert film of the same name by Led Zeppelin, released on October 22, 1976 in the UK (September 1976 in the US). It reached #2 on the Billboard 200 Top LP's chart.
The recording of the album and the film took place during three nights of concerts at New York's Madison Square Garden, during the band's 1973 North American tour. All songs were recorded by Eddie Kramer using the Wally Heider Mobile Studio truck, and later mixed at Electric Lady Studios in New York and Trident Studios in London.
In an interview he gave to rock journalist Cameron Crowe, Page elaborated:
As far as Led Zeppelin's studio recordings went, every single one of them has a certain ambiance, certain atmospherics that made them special. When it came to the live shows, we were always trying to move things forward and we certainly weren't happy leaving them as they were. The songs were always in a state of change. On [The] Song Remains the Same you can hear the urgency and not much else. The live shows were an extension of the albums.
The sleeve design depicted a dilapidated movie house located on Old Street film studios in London, which was used by the group for rehearsals prior to their 1973 tour.
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ESSAY BY CAMERON CROWE
LED ZEPPELIN - THE SONG REMAINS THE SAME
The exact city has faded, but the isolated moment is still clear. Somewhere on the East Coast during Led Zeppelin's most recent tour of America, Jimmy Page, John Bonham, John Paul Jones and Robert Plant were speeding from the stage to their touring plane. Now, heading down the runway to the next stop, they collapsed in exhausted heaps around the on-board video tape machine.
Little Richard was on the screen, bashing his piano keys, rocking the bandstand and howling "Tutti Frutti" in the 1957 classic film The Girl Can't Help It. Page watched, took a weary slug of Jack Daniels and began to grin. "You know somthing?", he toasted. "No escaping our roots."
Three years later, with that credo very much in mind, Led Zeppelin have released a feature film of their own. The Song Remains The Same captures all the power and force of a Led Zeppelin concert from the ultimate vantage point. The view is from the second row, the sound as if the viewer were on stage. A multiple track playback sends the music from every direction of the theatre.
The tension takes hold immediately. The opening moments of The Song Remains The Same show the band gather in Britain, fly to the States, and pile into cars that will take them to a long-packed Madison Square Garden in the heart of New York City. The pace accelerates; there is no chance to rest. They hurtle down the freeways; and then Zeppelin is on stage, tearing into the music, from "Rock And Roll" to "Whole Lotta Love"; it is some of their most blazing live material. Peter Clifton and Joe Massot have admirably captured the total event on celluloid. For the first time, a Led Zeppelin performance is not just a memory. The film as well as this soundtrack, can be experienced again and again.
The film, though, is much more than a movie of Led Zeppelin in concert; it is a rare series of glimpses into the visions and symbolism of the men who make the music. Fulfilling a long-held desire to express themselves in a cinematic setting, each band member and manager Peter Grant, have contributed their own "fantasy sequence". For the first time, one can view the images in Page's mind during "Dazed And Confused", see life breathed into "Stairway To Heaven"...
It would be impossible to detail those sequences here. The band has never really discussed their concepts or reasons. Now it's easy to see why. It's been quite a ride since that first album was released in late '68, inventing a new repertoire, raw and brimming with fresh ideas and explorations into rock.
Since then, Zeppelin's made six more albums, resulting in an ever-increasing legion of followers, whose loyalty can only be described as staggering, whilst the group record and live their music from L.A. to Kasmir. Now, their first adventure into cinema, The Song Remains The Same, is cinematic proof that amidst it all, while living the reflections of their music, they have neither forgotten nor denied that original premise - The Roots.
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REVIEW
Stephen Thomas Erlewine, allmusic
Commonly dismissed as a disappointment upon its initial release, the soundtrack to Led Zeppelin's concert movie The Song Remains the Same is one of those '70s records that has aged better than its reputation -- it's the kind of thing that's more valuable as the band recedes into history than it was at the time, as it documents its time so thoroughly. Of course, that time would be the mid-'70s, when the band was golden gods, selling out stadiums across America and indulging their wildest desires both on and off stage. It was the kind of excess that creates either myth or madness, and this 1976 live album -- comprised of highlights from their three shows at Madison Square Garden during July 1973 -- has its fair share of both, as Zeppelin sounds both magnificent and murky as they blow up songs from their first five albums to a ridiculously grand scale. This is not the vigorous, vicious band documented on the subsequently released live BBC Sessions or the majestic might of the 2003 live album How the West Was Won and its accompanying eponymous DVD, where the band still sounded tight even when they stretched out for 20 minutes. Here, on a show documented just about 18 months after those on How the West, the group is starting to let their status as stars go to their head ever so slightly. They no longer sound hungry; they sound settled, satisfied at their status as rock overlord, and since a huge part of Zeppelin's appeal is their sheer scale, hearing them at their most oversized on The Song Remains the Same is not without its charm. This, more than any of their studio albums, captures both the grandiosity and entitlement that earned the band scorn among certain quarters of rock critics and punk rockers in the mid-'70s, which makes it a valuable historical document in an odd way, as the studio records are such magnificent constructions and the archival live albums so powerful. Plus, there is a certain sinister charm to the sheer spectacle chronicled on The Song Remains the Same, particularly in the greatly expanded 2007 reissue, which adds six previously unreleased tracks, helping pump up this already oversized album into something truly larger than life. At this stage, Zeppelin only seemed concerned with pleasing themselves, but they only did so because they could -- others tried to mimic them, but nobody could get the sheer size of their sound, which was different yet equally monstrous on-stage as it was on record. It wasn't as consistent on-stage as it was on record -- a half-hour "Dazed and Confused" may be the stuff of legend, but it's still a chore to get through -- but the very fact that Led Zeppelin could take things so far is part of their mystique, and nowhere is that penchant of excess better heard than on The Song Remains the Same.
TRACKS:
Side one
"Rock and Roll" (Bonham, Jones, Page, Plant) – 4:03
"Celebration Day" (Jones, Page, Plant) – 3:49
"The Song Remains the Same" (Page, Plant) – 6:00
"Rain Song" (Page, Plant) – 8:25
Side two
"Dazed and Confused" (Page) – 26:53
Side three
"No Quarter" (Jones, Page, Plant) – 12:30
"Stairway to Heaven" (Page, Plant) – 10:58
Side four
"Moby Dick" (Bonham, Jones, Page) – 12:47
"Whole Lotta Love" (Bonham, Dixon, Jones, Page, Plant) – 14:25
