The Crunge

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

"The Crunge"

Song by Led Zeppelin
from the album 'Houses of the Holy'
Released	28 March 1973
Recorded	1972
Genre	Hard rock
Length	3:17
Label	Atlantic Records
Writer(s)	Bonham/Jones/Page/Plant
Producer(s)	Jimmy Page
'Houses of the Holy' track listing
"Over the Hills and Far Away" (3)	"The Crunge" (4)	"Dancing Days" (5)

"The Crunge" is a song by English rock band Led Zeppelin from their 1973 album Houses of the Holy. This song evolved out of a jam session in the studio. John Bonham started the beat, John Paul Jones came in on bass, Jimmy Page played a guitar riff, and Robert Plant started singing.

This song is a play on James Brown's style of funk in the same way that "D'yer Mak'er" experiments with reggae. Since most of James Brown's earlier studio recordings were done live with almost no rehearsal time, he often gave directions to the band in-song e.g. "take it to the bridge" - the bridge of the song. Plant pays tribute to this at the end by asking "Where's that confounded bridge?" (spoken, just as the song finishes abruptly).

Prior to 1975, "The Crunge" was only heard live during the "Whole Lotta Love" medley and their 1972 tour version of "Dazed and Confused". One example of this arrangement is presented on the live album How the West Was Won, where it also appears with "Walter's Walk" on a 25 minute medley. However, on the 1975 US Tour the song was performed almost entirely several times, in the funk jam that would link "Whole Lotta Love" and "Black Dog" at the end of the concert.

[edit] Trivia

"The Crunge" was released as the B-side of "D'yer Mak'er"
A voice is audible at the beginning asking Bonham if he's "ready to rock."
At the beginning of the song around 11 or 12 seconds in you can hear Page faintly test out a guitar chord to see if it worked with the song.
The drums at the beginning were sampled by New York DJs Double Dee and Steinski for a song called "Level 3." In 1989, De La Soul recorded a song called "The Magic Number," which sampled the section of "Level 3" that used the original Led Zeppelin sample.
In the film Almost Famous a reference is made to the song. On the shirt of the Led Zeppelin fanatic, Nick, is written the four "runes" from Led Zeppelin IV and "Have You Seen The Bridge?".
The Dave Matthews Band live jam "Anyone Seen the Bridge?" was named after this song.
This was the title of a season 5 episode of That 70s Show. All season 5 episodes were named after Led Zeppelin tunes.

[edit] Sources

Led Zeppelin: Dazed and Confused: The Stories Behind Every Song, by Chris Welch, ISBN 1-56025-818-7
The Complete Guide to the Music of Led Zeppelin, by Dave Lewis, ISBN 0-7119-3528-9