Nobody’s Fault But Mine by Led Zepplin
(Read this story first: Songs of My Life: Wish You Were Here)
Outside McDonald’s, I thought about pulling out of the parking lot and looking for some oncoming traffic. Other friends at McDonald’s could drive the kids who came with me home. “Wish You Were Here “was ending when a hand came in from the driver’s window.
“Listen to this,” my friend Bill said, popping my cassette out. The switched tape began to play and “Nobody’s Fault But Mine” emanated from my car’s speakers. Jimmy Page’s distorted guitar broke the spell like an irritated cat waking you up from a nap. Three times, Jimmy tried his melody before Robert Plant joined. Robert tried twice before John Paul Jones and John Bonham kicked in.
‘Nobody’s Fault But Mine’ resonated with me. I took another turn on the dark road I had turned down earlier. Blind Willie Johnson’s lyrics showed me the dirt I had surrounded myself with, and I wallowed in the hole I had dug. Led Zeppelin had stretched Johnson’s song to over six minutes. I listened to the whole song, picturing Robert and Jimmy leaning back and forth to the music. I had Led Zeppelin II, IV, and purchased In Through the Out Door last summer. I didn’t know what album this song was from. It was inspirational. As Robert Plant sang Johnson’s lyrics to me, I began to think I could survive this mortal coil.
My parents were dead, my brothers and sisters were gone, except for Dave. But I was still here. I could still make my own decisions. This pain – it was my own fault. Well, the pain wasn’t because of me, but this wallowing was my fault. I would like to say my life changed after hearing Nobody’s Fault But Mine; but I was just beginning to learn that grief was a process. This ‘dirt’ would bury me again, but tonight I found a way out.
I don’t know if Bill will ever read this, so he may never know the impact he had on me that night when he changed the cassette I was listening to. Like so many things in life, they go unnoticed, but this song always reminds me that I am in control. Not of my life but of my feelings. Later, I would find John Lennon’s lyrics, “Life is what happens while you’re busy making other plans.” I was not planning for a future because I was not in control – because nobody controls their life. ‘Nobody’s Fault But Mine’ reminded me that I was the only one responsible for myself.
While my parents’ death taught me that I, or anyone, may die at any time, I can control how I feel, and how I would move through this life I have – moment by moment. I can choose if I am happy or sad. Tonight I choose to be sad. I could just as easily have chosen to hang out with my friends and let my own morbid thoughts pass, as Wish You Were Here would have continued to the second part of “Shine On You Crazy Diamond.” But I choose to rewind the tape. I choose to wallow in my pain, bringing all my friends down. Justified? How does one argue with an orphan crying about his parents? But I realized how pathetic I was. Full of self-pity. And as Robert told me, “If I don’t read my soul be lost, it was Nobody’s fault but mine.” (Blind Willie was literally writing about learning to read, but whether it was learning to read, or understanding grief, the result was the same – it was nobody’s fault but mine.)
And the words of Mr. Krenck, my 6th Grade teacher, who, weeks after my parents had died, when he pulled me into a supply room and explained to me my mother would not have wanted me to give up, to stop trying, to stop living.
There was a movie or TV show that had written into its script that phrase, “It’s not what she would have wanted.” As I listened to Robert Plant tell me ‘It Was Nobody’s Fault Mine’, I remembered Mr. Krenck telling me, “It’s not what she would have wanted.” She would have wanted me to be happy, and for the first time in the last seven years, I actually thought it might be possible because I was holding myself back from being happy. It was nobody’s fault but mine that I wasn’t happy. I could choose to go down a different road. I was in control – and accountable to myself.
I don’t think most people know when their ego was born. Mine was born, or maybe reborn, that night. I would only rely on myself. I was accountable only to myself, and my happiness depended on my own decisions. I could not blame others, specifically my father. It really was nobody’s fault but mine.
Eventually, I stepped out of the car. I joined my friends on the sidewalks of the McDonald’s parking lot. I apologized, and they lied that they understood. I told them I was fine – and I was. We got back into my car, and I dropped everyone off at their houses. I had switched out the cassette. It didn’t matter what it was anymore. Bill, and Led Zeppelin (and Blind Willie Johnson), saved me that night.
In the days that followed, I looked into Led Zeppelin’s ‘Presence’ album. I already recognized Leppelin as a critical band before Bill popped “Nobody’s Fault But Mine” that night. My first Zepplin album was IV, or Zogo, or the symbols. I was intrigued to learn that Led Zeppelin IV technically did not have a name. I had purchased it after learning that “Stairway To Heaven” had never been released as a single, despite hearing it weekly on The Loop. The next time I was in a record store, I pulled out ‘Presence’. Examined the white cover with the picture of the family sitting at a small table looking at some black object in the center.
I wasn’t an album I was previously interested in. I didn’t recognize any of the songs until that night. On side 1, there was “Achilles Last Stand”, “For Your Life” & “Royal Orleans.” Side 2 started with “Nobody’s Fault but Mine” and continued to “Candy Store Rock”, “Hots on for Nowhere” and “Tea for One.” It was now high on my buy list. Released in ’76, it didn’t do well.
After Led Zeppelin IV, I had purchased Led Zeppelin II based on knowing “The Lemon Song”, “Heartbreaker”, which was always played on the radio with “Living Loving Maid (She’s Just a Woman)” and finally “Ramble On.” I also had Led Zeppelin I, though I remember that sounded older, but I knew “Good Times Bad Times” and “Communication Breakdown.”
During my ‘cassette stage’, I had purchased ‘The Song Remains The Same” after seeing it at 53 Drive-in’s Triple Feature – ‘The Kids Are Alright’, ‘Pink Floyd: Live at Pompeii’ and ‘The Song Remains The Same’.
This was around the time Led Zeppelin would release their last album, “In Through the Out Door. It was hailed as a departure from their more epic “Houses of the Holy” and “Physical Graffiti.” The Loop was touting the album’s jazz influences. Due to my propensity to buy new music, it was one of my next purchases. I thought it was a great album and I appreciated its jazzy influence. I loved ‘In The Evening’, ‘Fool In The Rain’ and ‘All Of My Love’.
Led Zeppelin’s ‘In Through the Out Door’ was a major album release, of course. Released in August 1979, it was at the top of my buy list. When I went to purchase it, I found that the album was shrink-wrapped with its cover surrounded by a paper bag. The bag was made from paper, like a grocery bag, with the words “Led Zeppelin In Through The Out Door” stamped at an angle on the front. When I got home, I found that the cover and the back were two pictures of scenes of a small bar. Neither the band’s name nor the album’s title was listed. The inside sleeve was heavier cardboard with all the information the band chose to share. The covers were hidden like Pink Floyd’s “Wish You Were Here” album (wrapped in black plastic), released four years earlier.
Later, I found out the covers were hidden because there were actually six covers available that you could buy. (I had sleeve C.) Each cover was of the same bar scene, but from each of the six people in the bar. Wow, that was some pretty heady stuff. And, the inner liner had a pixelated image on the front and back. This had been printed with special ink that you could wet, and the ink would be ‘released’ and color your inner sleeve’s artwork. I had to test if this was true, and it was. But I only did a small portion of my inner sleeve, trying to preserve the album’s value.
I immediately loved “South Bound Saurez” and “All My Love,” though they were on opposite sides of the tempo spectrum. To me, “In the Evening” was a perfect intro to my first purchase of a classic band’s album – slow, ethereal build with Plant easing into the main event of Bonham’s signature bombastic drums. “South Bound Saurez” romps around with a fun, playful piano and guitar swing. “Fool In the Rain” slows things down but doesn’t hold back, breaking out into a gallop at the whistle in the middle, only to return to its main groove. “Hot Dog” puts John Paul Jones’ keyboard front and center in this quirky danceable number.
Side two starts with “Carouselambra,” which sounds like something that could be from Physical Graffiti or Houses of the Holy. Clocking in at almost 11 minutes, it is the longest song on the album. “All My Love” is a simple and expressive love song for anyone, but if you know the band’s history and catch Plant throwing “child” at the end of the chorus, it could well be an expression of Plant’s grief for his son Karac’s death. “I’m Gonna Crawl” ends the album not on its highest note, but I think that was due to the strength of all the other songs.
‘Presence’ was well known as one of the last albums a collector would buy. So when I finally purchased ‘Presence’, I confirmed they were right. ‘Nobody’s Fault But Mine’ is by far the best song on the album. While ‘Achilles Last Stand’ would grow on me, nothing else really stood out. This made me leery of not knowing at least a few songs when purchasing old classic rock albums.
Led Zeppelin was known as the beginning of heavy metal, although over time, I believe that crown should rightfully go to Black Sabbath. I never thought of Zeppelin as ‘Metal’, they had too much variety, they were too blues-based. It didn’t matter. Plant, Page, Jones and Bonham didn’t care. They were regarded as hard rock gods.
One thing the new album did do was to bring a new tour. Their last tour in 1977 was cut short when Karac Plant, Robert Plant’s 5-year-old son, died of a viral stomach infection. The tour was canceled, and Robert Plant went into seclusion to grieve for his son and treat his addiction. John Bonham also took time to treat his addiction.
But with the release of ‘In Through The Out Door’, a new tour was announced. At the end of the decade, concert tickets were at a premium. Concert tickets were sold through retail stores. This was beginning to cause problems for these stores. For very popular concerts, people were camping outside of their local stores prior to tickets going on sale. I remember going to Sport Huddle to buy tickets for a show I don’t remember. They began putting wristbands on people, so the next day, people would line up based on the number of their wristbands. A Led Zeppelin tour would set a record number of people wanting tickets. So Zeppelin came up with an ingenious way of handling these ticket lines.
Instead of each retail store coming up with its own way of handling crowds, Zeppelin handled their ticket sales themselves. Zeppelin took out ads in local newspapers for an order form. Concert goers were to complete the form and send a cashier’s check to a PO Box.
Todd Combs and I decided we were going to get tickets. I recruited Steve Olson, and I believe Jeff Rivira. The morning the ad came out, I left early for school and picked up Todd Combs, who lived less than a block away from me. He had already grabbed the form out of the Chicago Tribune. We then picked up Jeff and Steve. We went to Jewel, and we all gave Todd the money for our tickets. Jeff, Steve and I waited in the car as Todd went into Jewel to get a cashier’s check.
Todd came back, opened the door, and opened the door yelling, “We’re gonna see Zeppelin!!” We all yelled in triumph as I pulled out of the parking lot, and we all went to school.
It was just a regular school day, but I remembered that in the afternoon, the hallways started to buzz. There was a rumour going around that John Bonham had died. My first thought was that it was just a rumour started by people who didn’t get their money in for the concert. I mean, we went all the way to Jewel to get a cashier’s check. They were just a bunch of sore losers.
But on the way home, The Loop confirmed the sad truth: John Bonham had died from drinking. The future of the tour was on hold, but doubtful. As details of his death were revealed days later, it was confirmed that the tour was canceled. My first thought was, “Todd owes me $15!” But Todd was also out of his money as well. It took weeks to find out that Todd would get his check returned. And he would have to get his money back from Jewel. It was months before we each got our $15 back from Todd.
Years later, a company would find the tickets that had already been printed for the Amphitheatre. I’ve always thought about buying those tickets. It would bring me that much closer to actually seeing the legendary Led Zeppelin.
Led Zeppelin is on every top ten band list. Legendary is an understatement. I feel blessed I lived when Led Zeppelin was still together. I feel the older people who were around when The Beatles were still together felt the same way.
I remember my friend Tommy, who was originally from Nebraska, told me how his mom drove him and a friend to see The Beatles in St. Louis. He said it was phenomenal, but after the show him and his friend were looking for his mom. As they circled the stadium, they came to a group of people, almost like a line.
As he and his friend tried to cut through the line, the stadium doors opened. The girls began screaming. And people who held Tommy and his friend from crossing the sidewalk stiffened their resolve as John Paul, George and Ringo were rushed from the building’s doors to sitting cars. Tommy said he could have reached out and touched them as they went by. He said a girl next to him jumped onto George, and he politely peeled the girl off himself, saying, “Sorry, Love.”
Tommy said they were in awe. They just had a close encounter with The Beatles. After the shock wore off, Tommy and his friend finished cutting through the line, which turned to surround the car The Beatles had ducked into, and found his mom’s car. I can’t vouch for the story; if true, it was a brush with greatness.
I feel today the kids have so much more music than we had. In high school, Happy Days was a popular TV show, so Fifties music was making a comeback. The AOR radio stations were classic rock, the mid to late sixties were considered classic. Early sixities were The Beatles and The Stones, so the Fifties were the beginning of Rock and Roll. In 1979, we knew the fifties music; it just wasn’t cool to listen to.
Today, kids would have to go back 70 years to get to the beginning of Rock and Roll, and a lot has changed; Punk, New Wave, Grunge, Emo, Indie-Rock and Electronic still to go through. Our parents’ music wasn’t cool, but it was popular. Our grandparents listened to ‘ballroom music’. big band. Its resurgence was still a few years away. Today’s kids will listen to their grandparents’ music. It was something to embrace – not that you have to. We couldn’t embrace big band or the crooners.
Typically, what happens is a band will reinvent the old genre. This happened with the Fifties music with the Stray Cats hitting the top ten with “Rock This Town” released in January of ’81. Linda Ronstadt did something similar with big band music when she paired up with Nelson Riddle’s band for 3 albums, but the kids never embraced that or any big band music. Maybe Taco’s ‘Puttin’ On The Ritz‘ would count?
It would have been great to see Led Zeppelin. While it would not have been considered a classic tour because ‘In Through The Out Door’ was controversial, it was no ‘Presence’. And while I agreed ‘Presence’ was not their best album, “Nobody’s Fault But Mine” changed my life, or more accurately, it gave me a future I don’t know if I would have achieved, maybe eventually.
Fifty years later, a sixty-some-year-old man looks back at that night, thinking about what a mistake he could have made. That high school kid would not have a wife he loves deeper than she could ever know. Have children, and he is so very proud and yet wishes he knew better. They, too, are loved deeper than they will ever know.
We all have choices, roads we can venture down. We can’t blame others – because in the end, it’s nobody’s fault but our own. We can be happy even if we don’t believe we should. Be Happy, my dear reader.
(“Isn’t this where…