Led Zeppelin – When The Levee Breaks

Drums… one of the loudest, widest drum sounds I have ever heard. The song just rolls through you. The song was from the classic Led Zeppelin IV album. John Bonham’s drums were recorded in a stairwell at Headley Grange with the microphones planted 3 stories up. The drum sound echoed up and was captured on the mics, creating a very distinctive sound.

The song started as a 1929 blues recording by Memphis Minnie and Kansas Joe McCoy, written after the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 devastated parts of the South. Jimmy Page and Robert Plant took that old blues foundation and turned it into something darker and heavier during the sessions in 1971. The band recorded much of it at Headley Grange, the old English house where Zeppelin liked to work away from the pressure of traditional studios. I will say that Zeppelin did credit these writers. 

Jimmy Page slowed the tape slightly during mixing, which gave Bonham’s drums even more weight and made the whole track feel thick. John Paul Jones added bass, harmonica, and subtle touches underneath it while Plant delivered the vocal almost like a warning coming through a storm. Page also layered slide guitar and backward effects across the track, giving it that swampy and almost haunted feeling. Even after dozens of listens, the recording still sounds huge. I do think it’s interesting that Page used his Danelectro guitar for the slide guitar part. A Danelectro is a cheap guitar (I have two), but they give you a unique metallic sound. He also used one on Kashmir. 

The band turned it into one of the heaviest tracks of the early 1970s without relying on speed and huge guitar. Hip-hop producers later sampled Bonham’s drum intro because nothing else sounded quite like it. Artists from the Beastie Boys to Dr. Dre borrowed pieces of it. That showed how far the song traveled past classic rock radio. The song still feels massive, like my walls are shaking every time Bonham hits the drums. Hmmm, maybe because I have the volume on 11…that helps. 

Jason Bonham: “It’s the drum intro of the Gods. You could play it anywhere and people would know it’s John Bonham. I never had the chance to tell dad how amazing he was – he was just dad.”

When the Levee Breaks

If it keeps on rainin’ levee’s goin’ to break
If it keeps on rainin’ levee’s goin’ to break
When the levee breaks I’ll have no place to stay.
Mean old levee taught me to weep and moan
Lord mean old levee taught me to weep and moan
Got what it takes to make a mountain man leave his home
Oh well oh well oh well.
Don’t it make you feel bad
When you’re tryin’ to find your way home
You don’t know which way to go?
If you’re goin’ down South
They go no work to do,
If you don’t know about Chicago.
Cryin’ won’t help you, prayin’ won’t do you no good,
Now, cryin’ won’t help you, prayin’ won’t do you no good,
When the levee breaks, mama, you got to move.
All last night sat on the levee and moaned,
All last night sat on the levee and moaned,
Thinkin’ ’bout me baby and my happy home.
Going, go’n’ to Chicago,
Go’n’ to Chicago,
Sorry but I can’t take you.
Going down, going down now, going down
going down now, going down, going down, going down, going down
Going down, going down now, going down
going down now, going down
going down now, going down
Going d-d-d-d-down
Woo woo

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Author: Badfinger (Max)

Power Pop fan, Baseball, Beatles, Alternative music, old movies, and tv show fan. Also anything to do with pop culture in the 60s and 70s... I'm also a songwriter, bass and guitar player. Not the slightest bit interested in politics at all.

27 thoughts on “Led Zeppelin – When The Levee Breaks”

  1. I actually just heard this a couple of days back & was thinking how ‘huge’ it sounded as you put it. A great job of record it well and using the right setting- it wouldn’t have been the same if it was made in a 10X10 studio with low egg carton ceiling

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  4. Pingback: Led Zeppelin – When The Levee Breaks – MobsterTiger

  5. Awesome post, Max. This song was a tribute to the Blues that originated in the Mississippi Delta emerging from the hardships faced by African Americans in the region, which included work songs, field hollers, and spirituals.  African Americans began moving North to Chicago in greater numbers during the First Great Migration, which started around 1910 and accelerated after World War I.   Other African Americans moved South to New Orleans driven by both economic opportunities and cultural factors.  Led Zepelin wrote their song ‘When the Levy Breaks’ about the towns that were destroyed in the Mississippi Flood, where most of the former inhabitants of these towns moved either north to Chicago or south to New Orleans, and these cities later produced many incredible bluesmen who were admired by Led Zeppelin. John Bonham’s drums were recorded at the bottom of a tall, stone-walled stairwell at Headley Grange, with microphones hung three stories above. This captured a colossal, room-filling echo that gave the kit a remarkably heavy and booming texture. When producer Jimmy Page and engineer Andy Johns slowed down the master tape slightly, this lowered the pitch and added analog echo, transforming Bonham’s performance into something massive and slow burning.

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  7. “When the Levee Breaks” is a pretty epic track. And, yes, Jason Bonham’s drums sounded massive. Led Zeppelin were an acquired taste, but I’ve really come to love their music pretty much throughout their entire recording career.

    It’s also encouraging it didn’t take a lawsuit to give credit to Memphis Minnie. Zep’s frequent habit of skipping credit were credit was warranted is something that has always bothered me. I also think acknowledging the original writers wouldn’t have taken away much if anything from Zep’s renditions since they made them their own. As such, it feels like a silly ego thing, perhaps combined with a dose of greed!

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    1. Yep, Led were selling like crazy anyway, there was no need to not give credit (and residues) where they were due. And since Led were (a biggish part) of the reason people were relistening to the original songs it should have been mutually beneficial artistically and finanacially. Sad that credits tended to get muddy and tainted, and for a few people thats the first thing they think about Led rather than the scope vision and talent of the band. Sorry, wee rant over!

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    2. Yes…I was encouraged as well by them actually giving credit. That is why I had to put that lol. With Page…I go for greed. He was Mr. Led Wallet…as the other members called him.
      Those drums…he hit them so hard…and yea what a sound!

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  9. Good stuff. Anything they did it was immediately recognizable. Greta Van ……do a pretty good job of Led Zeppelin wanna-bes, but they aren’t like the originals. I’ve been a fan since they first came out and got to see them live in 69 and 71.

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    1. Yes Greta Van does do a good job! Seeing them live would have been great. My regret is not seeing The Who with Moon…but I would have only been like 8 or 9 when they came through here…you lived in a much better musical time as an adult!

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  10. As the party-pooping old fart here, I’ll say that I much prefer the original. Since Led Zeppelin derives from the idiom “to go over like a lead balloon” I always wondered if they knew that about themselves. I think their version drags. The slowing makes it feel like a lead balloon, as do the drums. There is a difference between trance-like and hypnotic (like Burning Spear) and just plain boring (like Led Zeppelin). At least they credited one of the original songwriters for a change – but did they do it right away, or only after threat or lawsuit, as they usually did?

    I often found them heavy in the same way I found Iron Butterfly heavy – that’s not a good thing.

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    1. Thats alright! I love the original as well. What I do like is the sound of those drums…that is what hooked me with this…but it’s hard to beat an old blues original like this. I’m glad they actually gave Minnie credit….no this time they actually did on the record. Page must have known he couldn’t get by with it by this time after being sued already.

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  11. Good call on mentioning that Bonzo’s drums had weight! Man, they were ahead of the curve on getting wicked drum sounds on their albums. This is a great track.

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      1. I don’t know if this is your thing, but there’s a version by Muireann Bradley, a teenager from Ireland who plays old-style country blues, that I really like too.

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