This is an oddity in the Zeppelin canon as it is built around a Wurlitzer electric piano; bobbing along with the tide in it's undulating trebly manner, similar to the intro to the Queen hit, My Best Friend. John Paul Jones also contributes a nifty little upper register piano break every now and then to lead back into the verses, while other interludes include some big steel guitar bends before leading into a trickling stream of descending tremolo guitar while Plant 'ahs' meanderingly over it.
This English Country hybrid tune just keeps on rolling like the waves as John Bonhams' distant drums give the track a dusky thud; perfect for this hot, humid summer malaise of a song. The chorus is a dreary musing of how 'people turned away..oh..people turned away', the stream of consciousness lyrics from Plant are delivered in a nasally, slightly downhome accent, sought've Mississippi by way of the Black Country. It's a sleepy, lazy, dog-day afternoon haze of a vocal; part observation, part day dream; his husky voice working in a far more laidback setting to how it is regularly utilised.
The bridge is the piece de resistance, possibly their greatest ever mid song excursion, it starts at the end of another chorus as Plant intones the refrain 'people turned..away', but on the last delivery, the delivery of the word 'away' is modifiled as it lands on a new chord and subsequent key change and so Plant lowers his voice accordingly. Sonically we descend into a warbling, underwater passage, a rhythm guitar strikes a funky chicken scratch riff setting a firm groove for a delta blues soloing to play over it. Meanwhile there is a reverberated chamber echo of Plant's voice bouncing off the walls as he scats his most guttural as well as adding refrains of 'see how they run' (which for years I always thought it said "Seek Hollywood" because of Plant's odd phrasing). It all reminds me of the murky, submersed mid section of Over the Hills and Far Away; which also bore a watery mix, a funky strum pattern and a slowed down guitar solo.
However all good things must come to an end, and what an end, the bridge abruptly climaxes in a little hard rock middle eight that features a thrumming bass line and Plants' wicked vocals, doubled for sinister quality. It immediately commands your full attention as Plant demands; 'Do you still do the twist. Do you find you remember things that well'. The line crescendos into crashing guitars chords before a second repeat of the formula ends the whole bridge as it started; with a sudden key change on the last note and before we know it we're back to the plodding tempo of the verses. Its one of the smoothest, most subtle and inventive transitions I’ve ever heard in all of the 70s. The chiming tremolo chords and bubbling Wurlitzer rhytmms return with turnarounds of train horn guitar bends, Joneseys' lounge jazz piano flourishes and dribbling guitar passages before ending on another doubled Plant vocal line. Here, he sings 'Don't they know that they're going?' in a clipped Southern accent, much more pronounced than anywhere else in this song and its drenched in echo for a very wistful ending note of elegiac longing.
OK class, what have we learned from this rambling piece; I can't self-edit or contain my admiration of Zeppellin and..they were masters of composition and how to create dynamic changes!
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