I heard “Black Dog” at Tony’s Pizza.

I don’t know if students get drunk the same way we did back in college, when they lowered the drinking age to eighteen and imbibing was a novelty, when all we’d ever known was dope. We didn’t go to fraternity parties, the Greeks certainly were not freaks and their entire system was anathema. Instead, every Friday and Saturday night we’d buy a six pack, Schlitz, you never wanted to be a Budweiser person, it might have been the King of Beers but we saw it as pedestrian, and if it was a special weekend we went with Michelob. It’d start around 8, in somebody’s dorm room, no one lived off campus, it was always in the dorm. And at some point as the evening wore on we needed sustenance, and the only option was at the edge of campus, the aforementioned Tony’s Pizza, where the pies were only one step up from edible, back before there was any delivery, never mind Domino’s.

Actually, it was the manager of Tony’s who convinced us to drink Schlitz. Twenty seven, he seemed so much older than us, with a wife and a kid and a Plymouth Duster. We ultimately became friends, he let us make our own pizzas in the back, we spent a lot of time at Tony’s, and we knew everything on the jukebox.

This was the fall of ’71. So there was a lot of “Riders On The Storm.” Morrison had just died, the band had been in a lull, they’d parted ways with their producer, we expected dreck but we got a classic.

And then there was “Black Dog.”

I was done with Led Zeppelin. An early adopter, I’d seen them in the rain at Yale Bowl just before I’d departed for college, just before the release of “III,” which I overpaid for at the Vermont Book Shop, I was just that big a fan. But although I loved “Gallows Pole,” and became enamored of “Tangerine,” I was disappointed, the band seemed to have gone off track, and with only so much money to spend on LPs, I didn’t bother with IV, I felt they were past their peak.

Now if you lived in civilization, with good radio, you were immediately exposed to “Stairway To Heaven,” IV didn’t jump out of the box like “II,” which was an instant ubiquitous hit, but it got traction, amongst the brain dead headbangers who’d finally grown their hair out and been exposed to FM radio. Yes, I had contempt for them, I was a hipster, all I had were my bona fides, personally established, they might not have meant anything to anybody else, but they were oh-so-important to me.

But I never heard “Stairway.” I just got “Black Dog” and then “Rock And Roll” at Tony’s. No one at Middlebury would be caught dead with Led Zeppelin, everybody cottoned to the Dead and the Allman Brothers and you had to be laid back as opposed to in your face. So…

I was out of the loop.

Self-satisfiedly so. I mean “Rock And Roll”? Is that what you sing about when you’ve completely run out of ideas?

And by time I got back to Connecticut, “Stairway” had run its course. I discovered it eons late, looking at that dumb painting in the gatefold cover at a friend’s abode, he couldn’t believe I didn’t know it, so he played it, I got it, but I didn’t need to hear it ad infinitum.

And then IV was superseded by “Houses Of The Holy,” and to this day I can’t take “D’yer Mak’er,” lame English reggae overplayed on the FM. Which now was beyond its salad days, we started to get countdowns, on holiday weekends, especially Memorial Day, with its 500, and “Stairway” always topped the list.

But it wasn’t until ’75 that I truly got into “IV,” after the release of “Physical Graffiti,” which I came to love, hearing it every damn day after skiing at Mammoth Mountain during the month of May. The guy who brings the stereo controls the music, and one thing about twentysomethings, they love to hear the same damn songs over and over again. But I learned of “Kashmir,” and “Ten Years Gone” and “In My Time Of Dying” and…

IV.

It too was on an 8-track tape. That’s what we were listening to, Jimmy had recorded the albums back in Utah and brought his stereo along. I felt superior to his taste, the Zeppelin, the Doobies, but that’s where my love of each was cemented.

I now needed my own copies. I bought “Physical Graffiti,” I bought IV, and during that month of October when I was back home in Connecticut, training for the freestyle circuit, wondering where my life was going, I listened to them every damn day.

I might have been a college graduate, but it was just like high school. My parents would be in bed, I’d put on the headphones, turn out the light and crank it up. And that’s when “When The Levee Breaks” revealed itself to me.

I call it the heaviest track of all time, because I remember the force pounding in my ears, like Bonzo was hitting the skins with baseball bats, like I was on DMT, this cut with absolutely no airplay entranced me, made me feel like I bonded with these madmen.

And then there was “Going To California,” a state I yearned to get back to, this was the promise of “III,” acoustic, but on target, and… This was before the internet, California was a dream, and “Going To California” was dreamy, they captured the essence, that’s the power of music, when done right it exceeds all other art forms.

And now, in context, with knowledge, I could understand the magic of “Black Dog” and “Rock And Roll,” I’d heard them over and over at Tony’s but there was never any penetration, I knew them but didn’t like them, but now I did.

But the piece de resistance was “The Battle Of Evermore.”

I knew who Sandy Denny was. I’d seen Fairport Convention, albeit after she’d left. Her vocals here seemed part of a continuum, starting with Merry Clayton on “Gimmie Shelter,” moving on to Maggie Bell on “Every Picture Tells A Story” and ending up here. All three women’s vocals were secondary elements of their respective cuts, yet it was their work that put the tracks over the top. They radiated a womanly touch absent from their male counterparts’ work, they added sass and meaning and…all I know is I wanted to bring it back. That month in Mammoth, the clarity I once had, the vision, the direction, I only seemed rooted when I was listening to music.

The sound was so ethereal, the track started over a hill and far away, and then it came front and center, like gypsies coming to town, exotic creatures that could not help but fascinate you.

And as much as “Black Dog” and “Rock And Roll” were headbanging headbeaters, tracks to prove that Zeppelin was the biggest band in the land and you’d better pay attention, “Evermore” seemed to be cut without the audience in mind whatsoever, this was the power of the legendary acts, there was a barrier between them and us, we could get a peak by buying the record, but we could never gain access, they were dark, mysterious figures on an aural journey of their own device.

But by this time, with constant FM overplay, it seemed like only the dimwitted and dull still believed. Sure, “Stairway” was a staple, but “Graffiti” had no singles, “Kashmir” was too heavy for school dances, suddenly I was washed upon a shore with people I wanted nothing to do with, the uneducated blue collar beer drinkers…but then I realized, I was one of them too, I started testifying, how great Led Zeppelin was, as good as they ever were, and I just got eye rolls and stares, statements that the band had peaked on their first LP, with their blues influenced numbers.

Which cast me adrift. I was long gone from Middlebury, and I didn’t want to return. My freestyle career was a bust. I belonged nowhere, except in front of the speakers, with the amplifier cranked to the max. And the funny thing is I could never burn out on these tracks, they continued to satisfy.

I bought a ticket for the Rose Bowl.

Robert had that accident and the show was canceled.

I ended up seeing the band at the Forum in ’77. In a seat close to the ceiling. But I was thrilled just to be inside, they played like they meant it, that they were godhead and you were privileged to be in attendance.

Yes, I was there.

And now you can’t even see Led Zeppelin. Bonzo’s dead and Robert can’t hit the notes and doesn’t want to do it anyway, because he doesn’t believe in nostalgia.

And neither do I. If you’re not going forward you’re being left behind. People want to pigeonhole you, put you in a box, but not only is that inner death, the truth is what people want most is something new.

But that does not mean my entire life is not locked up in these records, that when I play them they don’t reveal experiences and feelings, ironically continuing to reveal new truths.

In case you don’t know, the piper’s calling you to join him.

I’m a member of the cult. Listen to the glorious sound, but beware, you’ll soon be a member too.

That’s the power of music.

That’s the power of Led Zeppelin.