Black Mountain Side
| "Black Mountain Side" | |
|---|---|
| Song by Led Zeppelin from the album Led Zeppelin | |
| Released | 12 January 1969 |
| Recorded | Olympic Studios, London, October 1968 |
| Genre | English folk music |
| Length | 2:06 |
| Label | Atlantic |
| Writer(s) | Jimmy Page |
| Producer(s) | Jimmy Page |
| ISWC | T-070.014.082-4 |
"Black Mountain Side" is an instrumental by the English rock band Led Zeppelin, featured on the band's 1969 debut album Led Zeppelin. It was recorded at Olympic Studios, London in October 1968.
"Black Mountain Side" was inspired by a traditional Irish folk song called "Down by Blackwaterside". The guitar arrangement closely follows Bert Jansch's version of that song, recorded on his 1966 album Jack Orion. This arrangement was learnt by Al Stewart, who followed Jansch's gigs closely, and who in turn taught it to Jimmy Page, who was a session musician for Stewart's debut album.
The beginning of the song is cross-faded over the end of the previous track on Led Zeppelin, "Your Time Is Gonna Come". An overdubbed rapid guitar lick can be heard with the tempo then steadying to 114 beats per minute throughout the song. Page did this to simulate the sound of a sitar, for which the song's dropped-down D♭-A♭-D♭-G♭-A♭-D♭ tuning leads into. Page played a borrowed Gibson J-200 acoustic guitar for this recording. To enhance the Indian character of the song, drummer and sitarist Viram Jasani played tabla on the track.
The overall Eastern-flavour of the structure was to lead writer William S. Burroughs into a suggestion to Jimmy Page about Led Zeppelin's music:
[I] did a joint interview with William Burroughs for Crawdaddy magazine in the early Seventies, and we had a lengthy discussion on the hypnotic power of rock and how it paralleled the music of Arabic cultures. This was an observation Burroughs had after hearing "Black Mountain Side", from our first album. He then encouraged me to go to Morocco and investigate the music first hand, something Robert [Plant] and I eventually did.
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