+ scroll down for Black Dog by John Farnham
Single:
Black Dog entered the Australian singles chart* on 17 January 1972 and peaked at 10. The song was #59 on the Top 100 of 1972.
Album:
The songs is on Led Zeppelin IV which entered the Australian albums chart* in Australia on 20 December 1971 and peaked at #2.
Songwriters:
John Paul Jones, Jimmy Page, Robert Plant
Producer:
Jimmy Page
Record label of Australian release:
Atlantic
*Kent Music Report / Australian Chart Book. See About.
Black Dog live at Madison Square Garden in 1973:
BONUS TRACK BELOW: sensational version by John Farnham
Wikipedia:
John Paul Jones, who is credited with writing the main riff, was inspired by Muddy Waters’ controversial 1968 album Electric Mud. He added a winding riff and complex rhythm changes, that biographer Keith Shadwick describes as a “clever pattern that turns back on itself more than once, crossing between time signatures as it does.” The group had a difficult time with the turnaround, but John Bonham’s solution was to play it straight through as if there was no turnaround. In live performances, Bonham eliminated the 5-4 variation so that Plant could perform his a cappella vocal interludes and then have the instruments return at the proper time.
Read more: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Dog_(song)
Songfacts:
The title Black Dog does not appear in the lyrics, and has nothing to do with the song itself. The band worked up the song at Headley Grange, a mansion in Hampshire, England that is out in the country, surrounded by woods. A nameless black Labrador retriever would wander the grounds, and the band would feed it. When they needed a name for this track, which didn’t have an obvious title, they thought of the canine and went with Black Dog.
Read more: www.songfacts.com/facts/led-zeppelin/black-dog
A music industry mystery was solved in 2023 after a researcher stumbled across the original photo pictured on the cover of LED ZEPPELIN IV. The man was identified as a thatcher in Wiltshire named Lot Long, who died in 1893. Led Zeppelin IV went on to become the band’s best-selling album.
More: Man featured on the cover of Led Zeppelin IV identifed as Wiltshire thatcher, decades after the album’s 1971 release
Lyrics:
Hey, hey mama said the way you move
Gonna make you sweat, gonna make you groove
Uh-uh child, is that the way you swing
Gonna make you burn, gonna make you sting
Ah ha, child when you walk that way
Watch heartache drip, can’t keep away
Click for full lyrics
This song is also on our Spotify playlists Bang a Gong – the 70s and Bang a Gong – rockin’ the 60s & 70s
Also on Bang a Gong from the Led Zeppelin IV album:
Misty Mountain Hop
Rock and Roll
Stairway to Heaven
When the Levee Breaks
Also, Black Dog and Kashmir live from the Celebration Day concert film and live album
Find more songs to enjoy: Bang a Gong song finder
BONUS TRACK
Black Dog by John Farnham from ‘Anthology 3: Rarities’, apparently originally recorded as a sound check
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