Yes, that's right; I think Presence is Amazing.

[Matjaz1]

It's really nice to contribute a little something, as I love this community of Zep fans and I thank you all for loving this band at least as much as I do, I feel this as love from you all, we have for this band and as my life is improving and I also play more and more music, music resonates stronger and stronger in me, as I create and share it with audiences! Thanks for being part of this forum, you gave me something I couldn't find anywhere else and special albums like Presence, connect us!

Lots of good points have been mentioned and I don't think such a great album really needs defending, it's great! What makes it great and very different from most others, are the circumstances in which it was made and having had a hard life myself, songs like Tea for one, really resonate with me! And lots of hard riffs, that repeat a lot and all have the same tone through all the album, I think that's a really good idea! Because it expresses how they felt! They were in pain and suffering and this album was not supposed to be colourful and varied and with bright acoustic guitars! It was about pain, suffering and fighting back and you can feel it in anybody's playing and especially in Robert's singing in Tea for one, perhaps first time he was as very deeply honest! The riffs are all Jimmy's pure genius and the way he builds Achilles and Nobody's fault but mine, aswell as Hots and basically everything and the way he makes it sound, is just beyond belief!

However what makes this album very different, I think also makes it a bit inferior to Graffiti or IV! It had to be like that, but a few acoustic guitars, keyboards and a few different sounding guitars would not be bad! There was still Royal Orleans, which is funny, but not the way No quarter is dark both in playing and lyrics! So even the very happy HOTH had No quarter, but Presence is almost entirely sad and riffs are indeed a bit to repetitive and I'm afraid vocal melodies are a bit weak, too weak for Zeppelin, although Hots on for nowhere is pure melodic Plant genius!

So I think the album is just great and I'm sure most fans love it and Jimmy WANTED to do what he did, although he could have done it better! It's hard to say if he has done it better on ITTOD, but only if Zeppelin would continue into the eighties, we would learn, if they could keep reinventing themselves with the briliancy of IV or Graffiti!

I want to believe they would!

[Matjaz1]

Oh and I must say Hots on for nowhere is one of my favourite songs of all time!!!

[H. E. Pennypacker]

Presence is gold, although Candy Store Rock is sort of a throwaway.

[Stairway is NOT stolen]

It does make sense - hear me out Strider.

How many fans of Led Zeppelin are "posers"? A ton. They are the same people who believe Stairway To Heaven is their best song, the same people who don't know a song on Coda, and the same people who only know Led Zeppelin's fourth album. The media has much influence on these types, Strider!

That's quite ignorant.

Let's see, I think Stairway to Heaven is their best song. I can name the songs from Coda, and Physical Graffiti is my favorite Led Zeppelin Album.

Does that make me part Poser?

[riffsofpage]

Presence is my favorite as well for almost 30 yrs now

Interestingly, it was the LAST album I acquired as youngster and it also took the most time to grow on me.

I'm looking forward to the super deluxe version and hopefully some alternative JP solo's.

[Strider]

Sad that you feel that way, because you're missing a huge and amazing chunk of what made Led-Zeppelin so special. Jimmy has said - many times - that when they released an album, it took people a year to catch up to it, and by then, they were on to their next album. One thing about Presence that everybody today is totally missing - save for some old timers who were around when it was released - is that Jimmy also said that each album represented a time-capsule of where the band was at that moment!

And life in Led-Zeppelin during the recording for Presence was very unsettled... Plant was told he might not ever be able to walk again for God's sake! The absolute king of rock singers and now he is facing a potentially career threatening injury. His wife was seriously wounded and only because they were in Zeppelin and had the money, were they able to get to hospital in time.

So... when you factor in the heavy drama surrounding the band during the time they wrote and recorded this album, it really makes it even more amazing! They even had the ability to still have a sense of humor - Royal Orleans - but all the other songs had angst, frustration, and many more negative emotions that gave birth to an album totally and completely unlike any previous effort.

Despite all the negative stuff hanging over their heads and the doubt about the future of the band, they still delivered an album that just sends chills down the spine! The entire E-P-I-C that was Achilles Last Stand - Page's guitar army, JPJ and Bonzo playing their asses off and all four deliver one of the most powerful album openers ever! And Robert's lyrics are just top-notch!

We swept New York a glancing kiss

To those who claim they know

Below the streets that steam and hiss

The Devil's in his hole...

For Your Life has a riff that just kicks total and complete ass! It is Zeppelin - musically - sounding very pissed off, whilst Plant maintains a sense of humor with the line about You said I was the only - with my lemon in your hand - ah oh... ah oh whoa...

Royal Orleans is a glimpse into a very humorous moment in the band's personal... uh... dealings... And one that never fails to make me giggle and feel a bit... sad for Jonsey! LOL

Nobody's Fault is just pure power! Robert rips off Blind Willie Johnson in the lyric department, but more than makes up for it with his amazing singing and that nasty - and I mean nasty harmonica solo!

Candy Store Rock is just fun with its quirky guitar opening and then it jumps in with Bonzo playing a fast beat and Plant getting as many Oh baby, baby parts as he can squeeze into one song! But it's a really fun song, especially when driving on the interstate! Preferablly at 75 MPH or faster!!!

Hots On For Nowhere is a song that many Zeppelin fans - for whatever reason - have no clue about. It has been said by those in the know that this song is Robert singing directly to Peter Grant and Jimmy. Some examples:

'I was burned in the heat of the moment

No! It could have been the heat of the day

When I learned how my time had been wasted

A tear fell as I turned away

Now I've got friends who will give me their shoulder

If I should happen to fall

With time and his bride growing older

I've got friends who will give me fuck all!'

Wow! Something had Robert ticked off and it's my guess that it was a couple of things... one being Jimmy's reliance on heroine and cocaine and the other is that because of the rampant drug use, he felt the band - or the two "leaders" of the band, Page/Grant - weren't exactly holding up their end of the bargain. The plot thickens as the song moves on:

Corner of Bleeker and nowhere

In the land of not-quite-day

A shiver runs down my backbone

Face in the mirror turns grey

So I looked 'round to hitch up the reindeer

Searching hard trying to brighten the day

I turned 'round to look for the snowman

To my surprise he melted away

Those are some very intense and amazing lyrics, and here's what I think they mean... The reindeer... it's pretty clear that Robert isn't referring to Santa Claus here, but what are the reindeer in the Santa story? They are what drives him and gets him to his appointed stops. Knowing Plant's genius lyric writing, to me the reindeer in this song means the duo of Jonsey and Bonham. The two that drove the music. The snowman is obviously Page... cocaine is often called "snow" and Page was at his most frail during this period. Thin, pale and probably scaring those close to him. And, in Robert's eyes, Page was melting away...

Then we get to the album closer - Tea For One. An absolute epic in every sense of the word and it boggles my mind that they never played this on the 1977 tour, the 1979 warm-up gigs or at Knebworth or the 1980 tour. Instead, we were treated to a now old Since I've Been Loving You which lacked all the emotion of Tea For One. This was Robert at his absolute lowest point and his lyrics show him to be in a very vulnerable state, which he had the courage to share with us in song. In hospital, future in doubt, his wife's health in doubt, and when he sings this line: When a minute seems like a lifetime, oh baby when I... feel this way That is something that each of us can understand.

Presence is an album filled with emotion - and most of it is negative or sad - though, as mentioned above, there's a couple times where some humor slips through the cracks - but this album is HEAVY! I totally get that people don't understand it. Especially on first listen. But man... to me, this is their best album of all! As a long time guitarist I do miss the acoustic guitar - A sad, acoustic instrumental could have fit quite nicely on here, but as I've said before when trying to explain this album to folks, this is Led-Zeppelin backed into a corner and like any great champion, they come out swinging and swinging hard!

Presence is the one album I am looking forward to the "new" version of... to see if Jimmy unearths a sullen acoustic track or perhaps something live - the Nobody's Fault But Mine from 21 June 1977 is absolutely killer! Bonham was so on fire that night and on Nobody's Fault... forget it... he was coming from another solar system!

So worry not JGaul... you are NOT alone! Presence isn't just a great album, in my opinion it is Zeppelin at their best and I've felt that way since 1976!

Hell Dr. Death, that was spot on! You saved me an immense amount of time of typing, as you said pretty much what I feel about "Presence".

"Candy Store Rock" is the only track I'm not that enthusiastic about...mainly because I think it goes on for too long. Too many "Oh baby's".

Robert's lyrics are hard to decipher and I think if people could have heard them clearer, songs such as "For Your Love" and "Hots on for Nowhere" might be more popular.

ITTOD suffered the same problem with the mix, in my opinion.

Anyway, well said Dr. Death. Excellent post.

[azad]

I love Presence. I really don't have a favourite Led Zeppelin album or song. I constantly find my Zepp listening preferences changing throughout my whole life. I do have periods of time where certain songs get skipped and others played more. Then those skipped songs become the more played ones and so on.

I'm not sure if this is technically correct, but I remember the first time I heard Presence that the sound to me was really 'ambient'.

Bonzo's drumming captured my attention in a different way and so did the rest of the bands sound.

So yes JGaul, I too think that Presence is amazing.

[NealR2000]

Album art was huge in those days, and I do believe that the album art for Presence hurt sales. Now I know that the band were very big on keeping their faces off album art, and ran on the belief that the music should speak for itself, and from Vol. 4 (yes, I know it wasn't really called that), played all kinds of games with their record company when it came to album art, but Presence? It just looked completely un-Zeppelin in every way. Yes, the music was very Zeppelin, but that whole dorky-looking family seemed about as far away from Led Zeppelin as you could get. Now I'm not suggesting that fans went into the record stores with the idea of buying it and turned around upon seeing the album cover, but I just think it had a negative effect on the band's imagery.

I also remember a short conversation I had with Robert in 1979 about the about-to-be-released ITTOD. He described it as being "more listenable". With Presence being the previous studio album, I'm guessing that he meant Presence was less listenable.