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"Heaven Knows"


Bong-Man

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I listened to "Now & Zen for the first time in a dog's age last nite. It had been at least 15 years since I listened to this disc all the way through. Once upon a time, I played the crap out of this cd. Plant is right....."Great songs ruined by the technology of their time". There was one exception of course....."Heaven Knows"

Have you listened to this song recently ? Because it's everything you and I are still looking for. Oh it takes about two minutes for Jimmy to come in with that background whine, but when he does, the song changes....the album changes.....and suddenly in 1988, the musical universe returned to it's natural balance. Does anyone remember the chill you had up your spine the first time you heard that solo on the radio ? Oh it wasn't complicated. Quite simple really.....but there was no mistaking who you were listening to. It plowed to # 1 in the U.S. in an instance......# 33 in the U.K......WHAT ?

In one simple solo, the man let you know exactly what was missing in your musical life. One solo erased "The Firm"...."Shaken & Stirred"....and every evil Zeppelin thought you may have had for over 8 years. And isn't that still in a nutshell your complaint today ? What if "Walking into Clarksdale" had the same production, the same layering, the same breathing space and humanity that this song had....or even the production of "Coverdale/Page"....or "Fate of Nations" ? It's time for another Plant/Page album...but done the right way !

I think Plant has coverd "Billy's Revenge" about 4 times in the last 20 years........and "The Way I Feel" is still begging for a Jimmy solo over 20 years later !

Sorry....Just a drunken Post-Zep ramble. B)

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I listened to "Now & Zen for the first time in a dog's age last nite. It had been at least 15 years since I listened to this disc all the way through. Once upon a time, I played the crap out of this cd. Plant is right....."Great songs ruined by the technology of their time". There was one exception of course....."Heaven Knows"

Have you listened to this song recently ? Because it's everything you and I are still looking for. Oh it takes about two minutes for Jimmy to come in with that background whine, but when he does, the song changes....the album changes.....and suddenly in 1988, the musical universe returned to it's natural balance. Does anyone remember the chill you had up your spine the first time you heard that solo on the radio ? Oh it wasn't complicated. Quite simple really.....but there was no mistaking who you were listening to. It plowed to # 1 in the U.S. in an instance......# 33 in the U.K......WHAT ?

In one simple solo, the man let you know exactly what was missing in your musical life. One solo erased "The Firm"...."Shaken & Stirred"....and every evil Zeppelin thought you may have had for over 8 years. And isn't that still in a nutshell your complaint today ? What if "Walking into Clarksdale" had the same production, the same layering, the same breathing space and humanity that this song had....or even the production of "Coverdale/Page"....or "Fate of Nations" ? It's time for another Plant/Page album...but done the right way !

I think Plant has coverd "Billy's Revenge" about 4 times in the last 20 years........and "The Way I Feel" is still begging for a Jimmy solo over 20 years later !

Sorry....Just a drunken Post-Zep ramble. B)

In vino veritas - it's a fantastic solo and it points out everything that is difficult to find in music today. It shows that if conditions were right, they still could make great music.

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What really got me about this (and Burning Down One Side) were Jimmy Page's solos and Robert's vocals.

The first time I heard Burning Down One Side solo from Pictures at 11, I had the same response you did to this one.

(There's no denying the chemisty between Page & Plant; it's timeless).

R B)

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Jimmy definitely wasn't on "Burning Down One Side". He was also on Robert's "Tall Cool One" and from The Honeydrippers-Volume One" Jimmy played on "Sea of Love" and "I Get A Thrill". Robert also sung vocals on Jimmy's "Outrider" album on "The Only One".

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  • 4 months later...

I listened to "Now & Zen for the first time in a dog's age last nite. It had been at least 15 years since I listened to this disc all the way through. Once upon a time, I played the crap out of this cd. Plant is right....."Great songs ruined by the technology of their time". There was one exception of course....."Heaven Knows"

Have you listened to this song recently ? Because it's everything you and I are still looking for. Oh it takes about two minutes for Jimmy to come in with that background whine, but when he does, the song changes....the album changes.....and suddenly in 1988, the musical universe returned to it's natural balance. Does anyone remember the chill you had up your spine the first time you heard that solo on the radio ? Oh it wasn't complicated. Quite simple really.....but there was no mistaking who you were listening to. It plowed to # 1 in the U.S. in an instance......# 33 in the U.K......WHAT ?

In one simple solo, the man let you know exactly what was missing in your musical life. One solo erased "The Firm"...."Shaken & Stirred"....and every evil Zeppelin thought you may have had for over 8 years. And isn't that still in a nutshell your complaint today ? What if "Walking into Clarksdale" had the same production, the same layering, the same breathing space and humanity that this song had....or even the production of "Coverdale/Page"....or "Fate of Nations" ? It's time for another Plant/Page album...but done the right way !

I think Plant has coverd "Billy's Revenge" about 4 times in the last 20 years........and "The Way I Feel" is still begging for a Jimmy solo over 20 years later !

Sorry....Just a drunken Post-Zep ramble. B)

Its been a long time since I Listened to that, but just have, it does bring back some memories, it was an exciting time 1988, Plant and Page doing their solo tours, it is still a great song just let down by the middle section 80's cheese keyboards, but the solo is full of emotion, almost yearning like a lot of his solos, a few tortured bending of notes, classic Page. Plants voice is sounding good.

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  • 6 months later...

I really like the song "The Way I Feel" its a very good song. "Ship of Fools" is great too.

I like that latter versions of "Tall cool One" that were live around the Fate of Nations era. The song is really good even without the Zeppelin samples and the Zeppelin connections are downplayed a little. Just the basic song was good on it's own. You get a little bit of that from the live version on the remastered CD, but that particular performance and recording were a bit flawed but still good.

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Well said, BongMan...

"....and suddenly in 1988, the musical universe returned to it's natural balance."

That is EXACTLY how it felt at the time...I'd had quite enough duran duran and Madonna by 1988 (hadn't we all?). This album heralded a return to rock, thank Ye Gods.:notworthy:

" Does anyone remember the chill you had up your spine the first time you heard that solo on the radio ? "

Hell yeah! I'll never forget the first thrills and chills I felt when I heard "Heaven Knows..." on an advance radio promo single. Had to be the first d.j. to nab that puppy the moment it arrived in the station's mailbag, don't ya know, haha. Spun the hell out of it on the air during my nightly "Get the Led Out" segment. Got tons of requests for "Heaven Knows" and of course "Tall Cool One" really lit up the request lines when it first came out, too.

wonderful video, too...shapes of things to come with the "Yallah" & "City Don't Cry" videos a few years later:

Interesting too the same actress from Plant's "Heaven Knows" video also appeared in The Firm's "All the King's Horses" video in 1986. Don't know her name, but she is lovely and extremely talented.

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@ Bong Man: chorus was done by these persons according to Plant's website:

Marie Pierre – Vocals (Background)

Toni Halliday – Vocals (Background)

Kirsty MacColl – Vocals (Background)

Thank-you !

Marie Pierre ?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-00gMQhLU0E

Toni Halliday was the lead singer for 'Curve'

Kirsty MacColl passed away in 2000.

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Kirsty MacColl passed away in 2000.

She was wonderful - another great talent lost way too soon and in awful circumstances. I don't know how popular she ever got in the States, but I expect you know she was the daughter of the great Ewan, a wonderful musician and composer who is probably best known for writing "The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face.

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She was wonderful - another great talent lost way too soon and in awful circumstances. I don't know how popular she ever got in the States, but I expect you know she was the daughter of the great Ewan, a wonderful musician and composer who is probably best known for writing "The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face.

Nope....never heard of any of them until Reswati's post. It also mentioned that at least one of them sang on "Shaken & Stirred". One of the reasons I asked is because the chorus almost sounds like an electronic sample. Nice to know they were human. :)

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She was wonderful - another great talent lost way too soon and in awful circumstances. I don't know how popular she ever got in the States, but I expect you know she was the daughter of the great Ewan, a wonderful musician and composer who is probably best known for writing "The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face.

I know of lots of friends that are fans and her version of "Fairytale of New York" with the Pogues often comes up on everyone's lists of favorite Christmastime songs.

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