#31 - Trampled Under Foot from Physical Graffiti (1975)
Appeared On: 25 ballots (out of 62 . . . 40.3%)
Total Points: 275 points (out of 1,550 possible points . . . 17.7%)
#1 Rankers: @Long Ball Larry@BrutalPenguin
Top 10 Rankers: @2Young2BBald@drunken slob@ConstruxBoy
Highest Ranking: 1
Live Performances:
LZ: 77 (
London - 1975-5-24,
Cleveland - 1977-04-27,
Knebworth - 1979-08-04, Frankfurt - 1980-06-30, London - 2007-12-10)
Page & Plant: 6 (
London - 1988-04-17)
Plant: 101 (
Stockholm 2015-07-14,
Unknown)
JPJ: 21 (Milan - 1999-11-13)
Ultimate Classic Rock Ranking (out of 92 songs): 21
Vulture Ranking (out of 74 songs): 19
Rolling Stone Ranking (out of 40 songs): 26
Louder Ranking (out of 50 songs): 40
Uproxx Ranking (out of 50 songs): 22
WMGK Ranking (out of 92 songs): 15
SPIN Ranking (out of 87 songs):42
Ranker Ranking (out of 87 songs): 28
Anachronarchy Ranking (out of 80 songs): 57
Our first song to garner two first place votes. The early origins of TUF stem back to the Houses Of The Holy recordings sessions in 1972. Like many other Led Zep songs, the band was rehearsing in the studio and started jamming. John Paul Jones and Jimmy Page mimicked each other on the main riff and things developed from there. The song was revisited, reworked, and expanded on in early 1974.
How they ended up on that song title is a bit of a mystery, but Robert Plant once introduced the song by saying, "If you like the motor cars and the parts of the human body, then sometimes... you can get trrrrrampled under foot!" The song started out called
Brandy & Coke.
Rehearsal Part I,
Rehearsal Part 2,
Rehearsal Part 3
The song was inspired by
Terraplane Blues by Robert Johnson, , a song about a car with lyrics with multiple double entendres. John Paul Jones would later describe that his keyboard playing was loosely based on, and in the style of,
Superstition by Stevie Wonder, with additional flares and homages to
Outa Space by Billy Preston and
Machine Gun by The Commodores. Page drew from his days in The Yardbirds, using effects (a backwards echo and wah-wah) similar to his work on
Ten Little Indians from 1967.
The entire band loved the song and loved to perform it. Bonham broke down why he loved tackling Trampled Under Foot in concert. “It’s great for me. Great rhythm for a drummer. It’s just at the right pace, and you can do a lot of frills.” Though the band sped up the tempo in live performances, Bonham still had plenty of room to improvise within every few bars.
John Paul Jones recalled creating the song in the studio. “I just started playing it on the clavinet, and Bonzo came in with this glorious stomp that had this great feel. He could play in front of the beat, and he could play behind it, depending on what was needed. Trampled Under Foot had this swagger.” Robert Plant has said it’s one of his favorites from the Zeppelin catalog.
Trampled Under Foot as the only single from Physical Graffiti. Backed with Black Country Woman, it cracked the Top 40 singles chart in the U.S., peaking at #38.
The song was performed on probably the least known Led Zeppelin performance . . . at the Hen & Chickens public house in Oldbury, West Midlands to celebrate Carmen Plant’s 21st birthday in 1989. Jason Bonham again took over the drum kit and the group cranked out Trampled Under Foot, Misty Mountain Hop, and Rock and Roll. Plant soaked in every minute of it: “Pagey was playing so good. I had a big lump in my throat. When he plays in those circumstances, it’s unbelievable. That little time of playing with him gave me something I haven’t had for a long time.” The lyrics “Now I'm singing all my songs to the girl who won my heart / She is only three years old and it's a real fine way to start” from The Ocean is a direct reference to Carmen.
Ultimate Classic Rock (21 of 92 songs): Inspired by Stevie Wonder's Superstitious, Led Zeppelin's funkiest song was the only single released from the two-LP Physical Graffiti. One of the band's most radio-ready tracks spotlights Jones' relentless clavinet, the album's not-so-secret weapon.
Vulture (19 of 74 songs): This stomping, brittle rocker should have been the lead off track of Graffiti instead of the inferior Custard Pie. Page has at this point moved far on from the slow and sometimes labored riffs of the first few albums. (Compare this song to Heartbreaker, for example.) Here, he’s utterly frenetic. To my ears the song has a dry shrillness, a high-pitched trebly patina, that I associate with heroin. You can take or leave Plant’s jokey lyrics about car mechanics or such, but there’s no gainsaying the ferocity of the band’s attack. Historical footnote: A reviewer in Rolling Stone said the song, a rock-radio staple now for almost 40 years, reminded him of Kool and the Gang — a novelty funk amalgamation known at the time for songs like Hollywood Swinging and Jungle Boogie.
Rolling Stone (26 of 40 songs): Possibly the funkiest Zep track: Jones (inspired by Stevie Wonder's Superstition) rocks a clavinet and Page a wah-wah, and they ride Bonzo's proto-disco beat. Plant works a sexual metaphor with automobile imagery echoing Robert Johnson's Terraplane Blues.
Louder (40 of 50 songs): Physical Graffiti produced not only the Led Zeppelin anthems Kashmir and Houses Of The Holy, but it also the delightfully upbeat, out-of-character Trampled Underfoot. The keyboard-orientated theme provided a whole new groove for the band, which stunned fans who heard it being played at the 1975 Earls Court concerts. It had the kind of relentlessly driving rhythm that no one wanted to stop. John Paul Jones set up the electric piano riff and Bonham supplied the surging back beat. Although Stevie Wonder may have provided the inspiration, the attack was certainly all Zeppelin. Trampled Underfoot emerged from an informal jam session, and rapidly became one of Plant’s favorite tracks. The lyrics are said to be based on Robert Johnson’s 1936 vintage Terraplane Blues. The song uses motor cars as a sexual metaphor – 'Mama, let me pump your gas'. Trampled was released as another US single and reached number 38 in the Billboard chart in May 1975.
Uproxx (22 of 50 songs): A tremendous Stevie Wonder homage, just as Pastime Paradise is a tremendous Led Zeppelin homage.
WMGK (15 of 92 songs): The clavinet is more closely associated with the funk music of the ‘70s (notably Stevie Wonder) than Led Zeppelin, but John Paul Jones’ playing of that electric keyboard is what makes this track so damn catchy and memorable. It’s perhaps the most toe-tapping hook in Zeppelin’s entire catalog.
SPIN (42 of 87 songs):One of the band’s thickest, tightest stomps, largely thanks to the superlative work of John Paul Jones on the clavinet and a melody generously pinched from the Doobie Brothers’ Long Train Running. As fun as it is, though, it goes on a minute or two too long after the groove starts to feel repetitive and Plant’s cars-as-sex (sex-as-cars?) exhortations get considerably tiresome, keeping it comfortably out of the group’s top tier of hits.
I thank you for all the likes and gratitude . . . but we move on to a love song Plant wrote about his wife.
