{"id":335533,"date":"2025-10-27T07:12:13","date_gmt":"2025-10-27T07:12:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/335533\/"},"modified":"2025-10-27T07:12:13","modified_gmt":"2025-10-27T07:12:13","slug":"the-only-led-zeppelin-song-geddy-lee-said-he-could-play","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/335533\/","title":{"rendered":"The only Led Zeppelin song Geddy Lee said he could play"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Geddy<\/p>\n

(Credits: Far Out \/ TimothyJ)<\/p>\n

Mon 27 October 2025 3:00, UK <\/p>\n

It was 1969, and Geddy Lee<\/a> was a bumbling 16-year-old teenager, built like a beanstalk with barely even the faintest attempt at a goatee. His father had sadly passed away when he was young, leaving a hectic household and an eminent sense that life is short and has to be seized in his wake. <\/p>\n

However, much to Lee\u2019s mother\u2019s chagrin, he set about seizing it a little too readily for her liking after he dropped out of school to try and make it as a musician. One band had proved pivotal in this decision, though he was well aware that following in their footsteps would never be an easy feat.<\/p>\n

The skill of Led Zeppelin was beyond him at that point. And if he didn\u2019t know that already, his mother certainly made him well aware. Rather than deter him, her disappointment would prove to be a driving force. \u201cI felt like I had to make sure that it was worth it,\u201d he recalled. \u201cI wanted to show her that I was a professional, that I was working hard, and wasn\u2019t just a fuckin\u2019 lunatic,\u201d he told Rolling Stone.<\/p>\n

He knew that if he was ever going to prove her wrong, he\u2019d have to take a different approach to education, sharpen his skills, and get to the point where he could grow a half-decent goatee and at least strum along to the Stones. So, when he spotted a tour poster for The Rock Pile gig in Toronto, it lit up like a beacon of hope for the would-be rock star. Alongside Alex Lifeson and Rush\u2019s original drummer, John Rutsey, <\/a>Lee queued for hours to get in.<\/p>\n

The big draw was Led Zeppelin, at the time, a little-known act buoyed by the esteemed presence of Jimmy Page in their ranks. After hours of waiting in the sweltering August sun among the general admission masses, Lee and his cronies in Rush managed to get second-row seats. <\/p>\n

\u201cThey literally brought the house down because, by the end of the night, there was plaster falling from the ceiling,\u201d he recalled.<\/p>\n

\"RUSH<\/a>Rush performing in 1978. (Credits: Far Out \/ Alamy)<\/p>\n

It was a Promeathean moment. Any notion of returning to school was drowned out by the tinnitus of roaring rock \u2018n\u2019 roll. He had witnessed the benchmark that he wanted to rise to. As soon as Led Zeppelin\u2019s debut was released, he raced to the store, and along with his Rush bandmates in the making, sat around it as though it was magic. To them, it really was.<\/p>\n

So, in their naivety, they decided that they would play along to the record and set up a covers band before working on their own songs and ultimately usurping their heroes. As easy as that. They were, of course, absolute idiots. They slaved away in their basement practice room trying to cover the band, but immediately found their way \u201ctoo hard\u201d to play. Even when they started gigging, they still weren\u2019t ready to master their heroes\u2019 work.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe tried a number of Zeppelin songs when we played in the bars, but we felt we couldn\u2019t pull them off. We did have \u2018Livin\u2019 Lovin\u2019 Maid\u2019 in our set for a while, though,\u201d Lee recalls. He remembers it as the only one that they could get remotely close to mastering. With a repetitive pattern in A major, it might not be what you\u2019d consider as classically easy to play \u2013 it is bloody Led Zeppelin \u2013 but it is classically easy to practice, so to speak. They might have wanted to nail \u2018Communication Breakdown\u2018, but they just couldn\u2018t manage.<\/p>\n

Differing from the likes of \u2018Black Dog<\/a>\u2019 dramatically, this cut from their second album doesn\u2019t cram in as many chords as the others, relying more on the rhythmic chugging of the blues. Ironically, this, in some ways, ties into the sense of dynamic movement that Rush would develop to a mindbending degree once they got Neil Peart behind the kit and reimagined what \u2018rhythmic\u2019 meant in rock.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s also not without irony that while Rush may have been playing it live, Led Zeppelin weren\u2019t because Jimmy Page hated the very rudimentary structure that made it possible for Geddy Lee and his mates to finally get a gig together, play something people had heard, and bring back a small pay packet as a rather pathetic \u2018I told you so\u2019 to his mother.<\/p>\n

Whether they also picked it to play because they also misinterpreted its lament of a certain groupie as a celebration is another matter, but it certainly provided the perfect education for a young group who would go on to be one of the very few who could ever compete with the complexity of their heroes.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Related Topics<\/p>\n

The Far Out Led Zeppelin Newsletter<\/p>\n

All the latest stories about Led Zeppelin from the independent voice of culture.
Straight to your inbox.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"(Credits: Far Out \/ TimothyJ) Mon 27 October 2025 3:00, UK It was 1969, and Geddy Lee was…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":335534,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[171,35304,975,99667,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-335533","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-led-zeppelin","10":"tag-music","11":"tag-rush","12":"tag-united-states","13":"tag-unitedstates","14":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115444891497854365","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/335533","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=335533"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/335533\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/335534"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=335533"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=335533"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=335533"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}