Over the Hills and Far Away (song)
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| “Over the Hills and Far Away” | |||||
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| Single by Led Zeppelin from the album Houses of the Holy |
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| B-side | "Dancing Days" | ||||
| Released | March 28, 1973 | ||||
| Format | 7" 45 RPM | ||||
| Recorded | 1972 | ||||
| Genre | Hard rock, folk rock | ||||
| Length | 4:50 | ||||
| Label | Atlantic Records | ||||
| Writer(s) | Page/Plant | ||||
| Producer | Jimmy Page | ||||
| Led Zeppelin singles chronology | |||||
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| Houses of the Holy track listing | |||||
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"Over the Hills and Far Away" is the third track from English rock band Led Zeppelin's 1973 album Houses of the Holy.
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[edit] Overview
Jimmy Page and Robert Plant originally constructed the song in 1970 at Bron-Yr-Aur, a small cottage in Wales where they stayed after completing a gruelling concert tour of the United States.[1]
Page plays a six-string acoustic guitar introduction with a melody reminiscent of "White Summer". Page repeats the theme with 12-string acoustic guitar in unison.
Plant's vocals enter on the next repetition. He tenderly offers himself to the "lady" who's "got the love [he] need[s]." The acoustic guitars build in a crescendo toward the abrupt infusion of Page's electric guitars along with drummer John Bonham's and bass guitarist John Paul Jones' rhythm accompaniment.
Through the pre-verse interludes and instrumental bridge, "Over the Hills and Far Away" stands out as an example of Jones and Bonham's tight interplay. Following the final verse, the rhythm section fades out, gradually replaced by the echo returns from Page's electric guitar and a few chords played by Jones on harpsichord.[2]
The song was released as Houses of the Holy's first U.S. single, reaching #51 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, later becoming a staple of the Classic Rock radio format.
Set lists from Led Zeppelin concerts frequently contained "Over the Hills and Far Away", the song being one that the band introduced on stage well ahead of its studio release.[3] The group first played it during their 1972 concert tour of the United States and retained it consistently through 1979, before omitting it from their final tour of Europe in 1980. In singing the song live, Plant commonly followed the words "pocket-full of gold" with "Acapulco Gold" (a type of marijuana), as can be heard on the live album How the West Was Won. Also, at concerts guitarist Jimmy Page performed an extended guitar solo, which could make the live renditions last almost or more than seven minutes.
Archive footage of this track being performed live at Seattle in 1977 and at Knebworth in 1979 was used for an officially distributed video of the song, used to promote the 1990 Led Zeppelin Remasters release.[3]
[edit] Trivia
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Trivia sections are discouraged under Wikipedia guidelines. The article could be improved by integrating relevant items and removing inappropriate ones. |
- The song was first called "Many, Many Times", as shown on a picture of the original master on the Led Zeppelin website.
- The song is Manic Street Preachers frontman James Dean Bradfield's favorite Led Zeppelin song.
- Recently when playing live in their Stadium Arcadium tour, Red Hot Chili Peppers guitarist John Frusciante has used the intro of this song as an intro to the Chili Peppers song "Wet Sand"
- Among blogging and forum-attending Led Zeppelin fans, the song has gained the acronym OTHAFA.
- The title of this song (as well as many others by Led Zeppelin and other artists) was the name of an episode of That 70's Show. It was also the name of an episode of One Tree Hill.
According to an interview with Guitar World Magazine’s Guitar Legend issue from November 1993:
GW: There’s an acoustic guitar running throughout the song. Did you play a main acoustic and then overdub an electric?
Page: N; we played it through entirely as you know it, but I was playing electric.
GW: So you simply edited out of the beginning?
Page: Yeah, that’s right. “Presumably”. It sounds that way. It sounds like the acoustic is going straight through.
[edit] References
- ^ Phil Sutcliffe, "Back to Nature", Q Magazine Special Led Zeppelin edition, 2003, p. 34.
- ^ Tolinski, Brad and di Benedetto, Greg (January 1998). "Light and Shade: A Historic Look at the Entire Led Zeppelin Catalogue Through the Eyes of Guitarist/Producer/Mastermind Jimmy Page". Guitar World
- ^ a b Dave Lewis (1994), The Complete Guide to the Music of Led Zeppelin, Omnibus Press, ISBN 0-7119-3528-9.
[edit] External links
- Review: All Music Guide
[edit] Sources
- Led Zeppelin: Dazed and Confused: The Stories Behind Every Song, by Chris Welch, ISBN 1-56025-818-7
- The Complete Guide to the Music of Led Zeppelin, by Dave Lewis, ISBN 0-7119-3528-9
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