Jimmy Page has shared a previously unreleased Led Zeppelin instrumental demo, ‘The Seasons’.
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The track, which you can listen to below, eventually formed the basis of ‘The Rain Song’ from the band’s 1973 album ‘Houses Of The Holy’.
Explaining how the track arose, Page wrote a message that accompanied the song on YouTube: “My original idea for the opening tracks for ‘Houses Of The Holy’ was that a short overture would be a rousing instrumental introduction with layered electric guitars that would segue in to ‘The Seasons’, later to be titled ‘The Rain Song’. Again there would be a contrasting acoustic guitar instrumental movement with melotron that could lead to the first vocal of the album and the first verse of the song.
“‘The Seasons’ was a memo to myself as a reminder of the sequence of the song and various ideas I’d had for it in its embryonic stage. I’d worked on it over one evening at home. During the routining of the overture now titled ‘The Plumpton And Worcester Races’, the half time section was born and the overture shaped in to the song, ‘The Song Remains The Same’. These rehearsals were done in Puddle Town on the River Piddle in Dorset, UK.”
He continued: “The first set of recordings were done at Olympic Studios with George Chkiantz. We then came to record at Stargroves, Sir Mick Jagger’s country home, and, like Headley Grange, with the Rolling Stones recording truck.
“‘The Song Remains The Same’ was played on a Fender 12 string, the same one used on Becks Bolero, with my trusty Les Paul number 1 on overdubs in a standard turning. ‘The Rain Song’ was an unorthodox tuning on acoustic and electric guitars. On live shows, it became a work-out feature for the double neck.”
In a previous interview with Classic Rock, Page had mentioned a demo of ‘The Rain Song’.
“I had a home demo of ‘The Rain Song’, but unfortunately the tapes have been lost. Which is a real bastard,” he said at the time. “I literally had the full piece from beginning to end. I had the Mellotron idea and everything on it.”
Page is yet to confirm whether or not the newly uploaded demo is the lost version he was referring to previously.
Meanwhile, the legendary Zeppelin guitarist previously said he was working on “multiple projects”, and confirmed that he had turned down working on Ozzy Osbourne‘s last album ‘Patient Number 9’.
Elsewhere, Nicole Scherzinger recently covered Celine Dion‘s ‘My Heart Will Go On’ in the style of Led Zeppelin on the second series of That’s My Jam.
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