Hitchcocks Vertigo-Inspiration for Kashmir

[SamoKodela]

I've always defended Zeppelin, for most of their plagiarism being limited to first two albums and even there they added so much of their own, while latter on they had so many original compositions, but there was always that element that ofcourse doesn't make them plagiarist or just a band with a new sound or great producers, it's just that there were little bits and pieces of lyrics or music taken from others or that there was music that directly inspired them to write their own.

It's always like that in music, so I'm not trying to make anyone feel disappointed, although I might be a bit every time I discover something like this, because I guess we are all more impressed if something is like totally out of the blue, but I guess it almost was to late for that in Zeppelin's time, centuries of great music have already been happening, although The Beatles have certainly been noted a lot less for being inspired by others in their vocal melodies. But overall Zeppelin's song were so original and when you add Plant's melodies and lyrics on top, it's all just great and he was rarely accused for taking others melodies or lyrics apart from the obvious ones, even if perhaps those melodies were sometimes not that catchy because it's not pop!

Anyway here is a scene from Hitchcocks movie Vertigo and the music after 1:10 written by Bernard Herrmann might just have inspired parts of Kashmir:

 

[hummingbird69]

I get what you're saying, I often see or hear something from a movie, old tv show or classical music that makes me think "hey was that the inspiration for" It's happened a lot, especially with Pink Floyd. I think I've seen a bunch of stuff that inspired Waters to write the wall and other PF tracks. On this one, though, I'm not hearing much by way of anything recognizable as Kashmir.  I suppose it's in the strings but I'm not hearing it.

[SamoKodela]

9 minutes ago, hummingbird69 said:

I get what you're saying, I often see or hear something from a movie, old tv show or classical music that makes me think "hey was that the inspiration for" It's happened a lot, especially with Pink Floyd. I think I've seen a bunch of stuff that inspired Waters to write the wall and other PF tracks. On this one, though, I'm not hearing much by way of anything recognizable as Kashmir.  I suppose it's in the strings but I'm not hearing it.

Ok no problem, I'm just glad you took it nicely, I tried to write it as a fan in the kindest way possible.

It reminds me me of both the main descending and the ascending riff that starts Kashmir. I wonder what others will say. Because understand

that whatever they say, they will just say they find it more or less similar, nothing else, it can't be anything else.

[SamoKodela]

The topic really wasn't meant to change anything, it's all been told and retold and discovered already and Zeppelin are a heck of an original band! 

Not much to add after Led Zeppelin II at all, but it's similar with Roberta Flack and song Gone away compared to main riff of The Rain song: sounds similar right in the intro but totally different note combination and also an additional note. You can check that very quickly on a keyboard.

 And in Vertigo you have a descending and also A BIT of an ascending melody, but only the descending one is quite similar with additional notes, and they you got several more riffs in Kashmir, the main one, the one over it, the one after the main theme, the symphonic part and the final riff, plus the lyrics and vocal melody. What an epic!

Nothing mayor to report here, only that Bernard Hermann died in 1975, probably of pride and delight when he heard Kashmir and that little bit of it too huh heh!

[Canadianzepper]

This is going to be a long one since I can't sleep.

I look at it this way, how do we create music?  Deep in the grey matter of the brain a sound sticks and never leaves.  Maybe a sound you heard many years ago, could be from a movie, another song or someone just drumming on a table.  Your brain might not even remember it entirely as you heard it, but you somehow piece together a similar sound when you are constructing your own riff.  Whether it's guitar work, drumming, the tone of ones singing, it is a combination of experience, sometimes classical training, that mystical spark that originated from the heavens, and/or an influence from somewhere.

As an example.  So many Led Zeppelin stuck in my head when I was kid, I heard the songs before but it they were before my time, so I didn't listen to their music organically as a new band.  However, they of course were played often on radio, I just never listened to rock music that often, other than my dads tapes and none of it was Zeppelin.

So, the slide and follow through in the song When the Levee Breaks comes to mind.  When I started getting into Zeppelin and my buddy told me "this is the album you need to listen to" and he put on the Levee Breaks, it immediately sparked that memory, I knew it was the sound I had always remembered and enjoyed, I just hadn't heard it in years, nor did I know the source.  It didn't sound exactly as I remembered it from God knows when as a kid, but I knew without question, it was the song.  Same goes for Kashmir, even Whole Lotta Love.  Ironically, it wasn't the now famous riff I remembered, but what I could have described as the "airplane sound" (the slide guitar) in the song, and also, I thought Plant was just mumbling indiscernible lyrics, when he was in fact saying "you wanna whole lotta love".

Now, for arguments sake, let's say I became a guitarist, completely self taught and not educated on well known guitarists and their work.  I could have constructed similar sounds, some from my own magical of creation, others, from those same riffs I heard years earlier.  You might listen to my stuff and say, "that sounds like when the Levee Breaks", you could even play it for me and I would remember that source.  

I suppose, some of their work with the blues, especially Plants lyrics, was a direct carbon copy.  Some of it impossible to trace back the source, others, just a rip off.  I have to think, when Page in particular, was sitting at home trying to come up with some new material, the spark will strike and he might come up with something similar to a sound he heard in a movie or some other source many years earlier.  Might be obscure, might be more well known, but it will conjure up somehow in his brain.  Ditto for music he heard when travelling the world.  I think of songs like Friends or Four Sticks.  They have that Eastern sound to their body.  I can't say it's theft, it's just an influence and they expanded and applied it to rock music.

 

Bottom line I suppose, creation is a magical process.  We are amazed at not just the technical structure, but more importantly the creativity.  Which, in my opinion is never more pronounced then when I hear Pages solos.  When he plays without predetermined structure and just let's the notes rip from somewhere in within him, to me they are the best part of their catalog.  Since I've Been Loving You, 10 years Gone, Heartbreaker, Dazed and Confused, Stairway to Heaven, on and on, just solo work without proper words to describe.  Those solos are just raw God like creations, the likes we have not seen outside of Hendrixs work, which was different, but outstanding in it's own way.

 

Thanks for your time 

[reids]

On 3/11/2019 at 2:31 PM, SamoKodela said:

I've always defended Zeppelin, for most of their plagiarism being limited to first two albums and even there they added so much of their own, while latter on they had so many original compositions, but there was always that element that ofcourse doesn't make them plagiarist or just a band with a new sound or great producers, it's just that there were little bits and pieces of lyrics or music taken from others or that there was music that directly inspired them to write their own.

It's always like that in music, so I'm not trying to make anyone feel disappointed, although I might be a bit every time I discover something like this, because I guess we are all more impressed if something is like totally out of the blue, but I guess it almost was to late for that in Zeppelin's time, centuries of great music have already been happening, although The Beatles have certainly been noted a lot less for being inspired by others in their vocal melodies. But overall Zeppelin's song were so original and when you add Plant's melodies and lyrics on top, it's all just great and he was rarely accused for taking others melodies or lyrics apart from the obvious ones, even if perhaps those melodies were sometimes not that catchy because it's not pop!

Anyway here is a scene from Hitchcocks movie Vertigo and the music after 1:10 written by Bernard Herrmann might just have inspired parts of Kashmir:

 

One could say at :40 seconds,  it could be inspiration for “No Quarter” (mellotron keyboard sounds), too. Led Zeppelin’s music has always had that cinematic (larger than life) appeal considering two in the group were top session musicians beforehand. 

R😎

[SamoKodela]

Both posts are great, thanks. The first one is really well written, poetic essay and well the second one, yeah, I'm still waiting for an epic movie with a car driving down the desert with Kashmir in it or maybe Moses spreading the sea! 

[SteveAJones]

On ‎3‎/‎12‎/‎2019 at 6:39 PM, SamoKodela said:

The topic really wasn't meant to change anything, it's all been told and retold and discovered already and Zeppelin are a heck of an original band! 

Not much to add after Led Zeppelin II at all, but it's similar with Roberta Flack and song Gone away compared to main riff of The Rain song: sounds similar right in the intro but totally different note combination and also an additional note. You can check that very quickly on a keyboard.

 And in Vertigo you have a descending and also A BIT of an ascending melody, but only the descending one is quite similar with additional notes, and they you got several more riffs in Kashmir, the main one, the one over it, the one after the main theme, the symphonic part and the final riff, plus the lyrics and vocal melody. What an epic!

Nothing mayor to report here, only that Bernard Hermann died in 1975, probably of pride and delight when he heard Kashmir and that little bit of it too huh heh!

Hasn't Page himself freely admitted The Rain Song was inspired by George Harrison's song Something?

There's an old mummy film from the 1930's or '40's -- can't be bothered to confirm again which film -- that has the suspenseful "duh duh duh (pause) duh duh duh" of Kashmir when the mummy first appears in his tomb. I thought it was discussed here before but the search function did not yield anything. 

[SamoKodela]

13 minutes ago, SteveAJones said:

Hasn't Page himself freely admitted The Rain Song was inspired by George Harrison's song Something?

There's an old mummy film from the 1930's or '40's -- can't be bothered to confirm again which film -- that has the suspenseful "duh duh duh (pause) duh duh duh" of Kashmir when the mummy first appears in his tomb. I thought it was discussed here before but the search function did not yield anything. 

Just first two chords, I think.