Babe, I'm Gonna Leave You by Led Zeppelin | acoustic
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An acoustic guitar lesson on how to play “Babe, I'm Gonna Leave You" by Led Zeppelin from their debut self titled album released January 12, 1968.
I always thought that this was a Led Zeppelin original but when I was doing the research on this song I found out that it was written by Anne Bredon in the late fifties. Joan Baez recorded a solo version for her 1962 album Joan Baez in Concert and a variety of musicians subsequently adapted it to a variety of styles, including Led Zeppelin. Several songwriters have been credited on releases over the years, although Bredon usually receives a sole or partial credit on current releases. Jimmy Page heard Baez' version and began developing his version of "Babe I'm Gonna Leave You" early in his career as a session guitarist. He played the song for Robert Plant during their first meeting at Page's riverside home at Pangbourne in late July of 1968.
This is such an epic song. For what appears to be a fairly simple tune, once you get into it there's a lot more going on than you might think. The main lick or riff is played twenty seven times, but there are as many as eleven separate variations on it, so lots of details involved if you want to get it right. I had a lot of fun making this video. It's always surprising to me how much the band varies the tempo in these songs. It's one of the things I love about Zep. These days everything is played to a click track, and for some things that's good, but keeping time more flexible allows for way more feel, and these guys were great at doing that. I hope you find the lesson useful and I hope you have fun playing this great song. Cheers Andy |
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