Rock and Roll Contenders # 20: Led Zeppelin's "Communication Breakdown"

“Communication Breakdown” and the sound recording we have of it is simple enough for anyone to play, and just mysterious enough to stand beyond our comprehension.

Women can drive you mad and leave you tongue tied. Drive you to ruin. Who can explain animal attraction or love at first sight? Led Zeppelin gave it a go on their debut album, a collection that was recorded in the fall of 1968, before the band signed with Atlantic Records. “Communication Breakdown” and the aural snapshot we have of it is simple enough for anyone to play, and just mysterious enough to stand beyond our comprehension. The subject matter is primal and on point for rock and roll. Robert Plant sings, “I don’t know what it is I like about you, but I like it a lot.” This is juvenile, the stuff of high school hallway chatter, and it’s a profound look at the human condition, too. We can hardly understand our deeper urges, but we follow them like dogs chasing rabbits.

We might moan about our lack of control, but we go toward the thing that pulls us. It’s like gravity, a law of nature. We can’t fight our base instincts, and Led Zeppelin will put them to good use at Olympic Studios in London in the fall of ‘68. Perhaps the Hindenburg disaster belongs on the cover of Led Zeppelin’s first album. Not just because the boys in the band figured they’d go over like a lead zeppelin, but because we humans choose disastrous paths sometimes, despite our better judgement and higher nature. Just when we think we’re cruising at the proper altitude, things explode.

Led Zeppelin is a new entity as the track is recorded, and “Communication Breakdown” is one of the first songs the boys write together—Jimmy Page, Plant, John Paul Jones, and John Bonham. They hardly expect to be legends, but the unit creates something larger than the individuals in the room, a thing that is loose and powerful and maybe even off the rails. True rock and roll energy never stays on the rails, though. The path is wild and unmarked and littered with examples of how this thing is supposed to work, so the stoker puts more coal to the fire and the engineer goes to full throttle.

The examples of what rock and roll might be stand as timeless signposts, even while what’s new steers into uncharted territory. Robert Plant loves Elvis Presley, but he’s not Elvis. Plant can croon, but he’s mostly going to shout and scream about the thing he wants most, a girl who’s caught his fancy. Jimmy Page can play that Scotty Moore stuff, but he’s going to throw gasoline on the fire so the flame might grow and flourish and utilize every atom of oxygen in the vicinity. Fast and loud. Fast and loud, gentlemen. That’s the only direction Page throws out as producer of this recording.

Love can make you insane or lead to a nervous breakdown, and there are no words for the girl. No words beyond I want you to love me. Sure, it sounds like a childish plea, but sometimes love can make you feel like an infant attempting his first steps. Sometimes you just have to get up and do the thing, even when you don’t know how, even when you can’t communicate what it is that drives you. And if it finally breaks you down, so be it.