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Achilles Last Stand

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"Achilles Last Stand"
Song

"Achilles Last Stand" [sic][1] is a song by English rock group Led Zeppelin, featured as the opening track on their 1976 album Presence. It was written by Jimmy Page and Robert Plant at Page's house in Malibu, California where they stayed for a month while Plant recovered from a serious car accident he had sustained in Greece in 1975. The song was then recorded at Musicland Studios in Munich, Germany.

Overview

"Achilles Last Stand" is one of the longest songs in the Led Zeppelin catalogue, at 10 minutes and 22 seconds. It is famous for John Bonham's immensely powerful drumming, John Paul Jones's galloping bass line (played on a custom Alembic made eight string bass), Jimmy Page's overdubbed orchestral guitar arrangement (the dozen or so guitar tracks having been recorded in Munich in a single session), and a dramatic, epic guitar solo which is considered by many to be among Page's best. It has similar qualities to a song in the speed metal genre. Jimmy Page applied vari-speed during production of this song to speed it up, one of the few times he employed that device in the studio for Led Zeppelin songs.[2]

It has been suggested that the title of the song was an acknowledgment of Plant's broken ankle. Lyrically, the song is thought to have been inspired by Plant's experiences in Morocco, specifically referring to Morocco's Atlas Mountains in the line: "The mighty arms of Atlas hold the heavens from the Earth". This is a double-meaning to imply the Atlas mountains in a physical sense seeming to hold up the sky, as well as the reference to the Titan Atlas and his task to hold up the sky on his shoulders and thus separate it from the Earth. Plant's lyrics were also inspired by some of the poetry he was reading at the time, which includes William Blake. "Albion remains/sleeping now to rise again" is a reference to Blake's engraving The Dance Of Albion. The following is an excerpt from the poem that goes with the song:

Albion rose from where he labour'd at the Mill with Slaves.
Giving himself for the Nations he danc'd the dance of Eternal Death.

Albion is the most ancient name of Great Britain.

A piece of the song's rhythm section had been played during live performances of "Dazed and Confused" on the band's 1973 and 1975 concert tours. This prelude to the song can be heard on the concert film The Song Remains the Same, five minutes and thirty seconds into the recording, at the "San Francisco" section. This suggests that the band had been working on "Achilles Last Stand" for some time, since Presence wasn't recorded until late 1975.

Jimmy Page has been quoted as saying that "Achilles Last Stand" is his favorite Led Zeppelin song. Not surprisingly, it became an integral component of almost every Led Zeppelin concert from their 1977 tour of the United States onwards. Though Page initially expected that he would need to use his Gibson EDS-1275 double-necked guitar to play the song live, he realised that it was possible to use the Gibson Les Paul. One live version, from Led Zeppelin's performance at Knebworth in 1979, is featured on disc 2 of the Led Zeppelin DVD. "Achilles Last Stand" was used in the film Dogtown and Z-Boys (2001), one of the few times the band allowed a number from its catalogue to be used in a motion picture.

The bridge changes 4/4 time to 5/4 time, and uses triplets, and is indeed very hard to play.

Trivia

  • The line "The devil's in his hole" refers to a victorian tourist attraction the band visited whilst in St. Mary, Jersey. Named

"Devil's Hole", it features a statue of a devil, in a hole.[citation needed]

  • Progressive metal group Dream Theater published a medley of Led Zeppelin songs in their 1995 EP A Change of Seasons, which featured parts of "Achilles Last Stand".

References

  1. ^ The apostrophe, which should rightly be in the phrase "Achilles's Last Stand" in correct English, is not present in this song title.
  2. ^ Brad Tolinski and Greg Di Bendetto, "Light and Shade", Guitar World, January 1998.

Sources

  • Led Zeppelin: Dazed and Confused: The Stories Behind Every Song, by Chris Welch, ISBN 1-56025-818-7
  • The Complete Guide to the Music of Led Zeppelin, by Dave Lewis, ISBN 0-7119-3528-9
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