WEBVTT - Led Zeppelin Pt. 2: The Haunting at Headley Grange 0:00:00.440 --> 0:00:22.000 Disgraceland is a production of Double Elvis. This is a 0:00:22.079 --> 0:00:27.680 story about a house, about hallways that whisper in staircases 0:00:27.760 --> 0:00:32.600 that creak under footsteps that aren't yours. It's about a 0:00:32.640 --> 0:00:37.040 fire that burns in her hearth while something unseen breathes 0:00:37.240 --> 0:00:40.760 in the shadows. It's also a story about a band, 0:00:41.560 --> 0:00:44.479 about a guitarist with a taste for the occult and 0:00:44.520 --> 0:00:47.760 a drummer too frightened to sleep at night. It's about 0:00:47.800 --> 0:00:50.640 the biggest rock and roll group in the world whose 0:00:50.720 --> 0:00:56.880 members went into something supposedly haunted and emerged with multiple masterpieces. 0:00:58.560 --> 0:01:02.320 And since this story is about led Zeppelin, and this 0:01:02.440 --> 0:01:07.960 is also a story about great music, unlike that music 0:01:08.000 --> 0:01:09.440 I played for you at the top of the show 0:01:10.280 --> 0:01:13.800 that wasn't great music. That was a preset loop for 0:01:13.920 --> 0:01:20.160 my melotron called Big Snakes in Big Lakes MK. Two. 0:01:20.440 --> 0:01:22.920 I played you that loop because I can't afford the 0:01:23.000 --> 0:01:27.880 rights to Maggie May by Rod Stewart. And why would 0:01:27.880 --> 0:01:31.279 I play you that specific slice of May December Cheese? 0:01:31.400 --> 0:01:35.520 Could I afford it? Because that was the number one 0:01:35.560 --> 0:01:40.000 song in America on November eighth, nineteen seventy one, and 0:01:40.000 --> 0:01:42.440 that was the day that led Zeppelin released their fourth 0:01:42.520 --> 0:01:46.319 and biggest album to date, an album that may have 0:01:46.400 --> 0:01:49.400 cast its own spell on the surroundings in which it 0:01:49.440 --> 0:01:56.360 was made. On this episode, pentagrams chalk circles, strange noises, 0:01:56.640 --> 0:01:59.880 a gray man on the stairs an old house called 0:02:00.040 --> 0:02:05.440 Headley Grange. And this our part two episode on led Zeppelin. 0:02:06.280 --> 0:02:30.760 I'm Jake Brennan and this is Disgraceland. 0:02:34.040 --> 0:02:37.480 Nineteen seventy twenty six year old Malcolm Debt aimed as 0:02:37.520 --> 0:02:40.880 flashlight at the front door of the imposing eighteenth century manner. 0:02:42.000 --> 0:02:45.000 There in the light, he inserted an old key into 0:02:45.040 --> 0:02:48.400 the lock. He heard the volt retract and pushed the 0:02:48.440 --> 0:02:52.560 door open. It made a long, creaking sound, as if 0:02:52.600 --> 0:02:56.480 it had been closed for years, a deep, eerie moan 0:02:56.600 --> 0:03:00.640 that echoed inside the darkened foyer, And then he stepped 0:03:00.639 --> 0:03:03.680 into the house just as a cold wind kicked up 0:03:03.800 --> 0:03:08.720 from nearby lockness. Malcolm was here on behalf of led 0:03:08.800 --> 0:03:13.559 Zeppelin guitarist Jimmy Page, who had hired him as caretaker 0:03:14.040 --> 0:03:18.720 upon his purchase of what was known as Bolskinhouse, formerly 0:03:18.760 --> 0:03:21.880 owned by one of the Scottish Highland's most notorious residents, 0:03:22.360 --> 0:03:29.279 the famed occultist Aleister Crowley. It was Jimmy's growing fascination 0:03:29.919 --> 0:03:35.240 some would say obsession with Crowley that led to this purchase. Sure, 0:03:35.320 --> 0:03:38.200 the Beatles had included Crowley's face on the collage cover 0:03:38.360 --> 0:03:41.360 art of Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club band, but Jimmy 0:03:41.400 --> 0:03:44.520 Page went one step further. As Jimmy did when it 0:03:44.600 --> 0:03:48.120 came to his obsessions. He bought the creepy dude's thirty 0:03:48.120 --> 0:03:53.000 five acre estate. And now Malcolm here didn't share Jimmy's 0:03:53.040 --> 0:03:55.960 belief in the power of Alistair Crowley or it is 0:03:56.000 --> 0:04:00.000 so called magic, and that's magic with a K understand, 0:04:00.080 --> 0:04:05.840 and so none of that David Copperfield bullshit again magic K. 0:04:06.080 --> 0:04:09.280 I'm talking about the real stuff, the dark stuff, the 0:04:09.320 --> 0:04:12.920 stuff that can change your life if you harness it correctly, 0:04:13.840 --> 0:04:17.440 or so the thinking one. And at first when Malcolm 0:04:17.480 --> 0:04:21.080 walked inside, he wasn't stealing himself for things that went 0:04:21.120 --> 0:04:23.880 bump in the night. He was six foot something, a 0:04:23.960 --> 0:04:27.040 rough hewn London boy. He could hold his own. A 0:04:27.120 --> 0:04:30.480 no bald bow tide long dead boogeyman was going to 0:04:30.560 --> 0:04:34.080 rattle him. Malcolm was just a skeptic fumbling his way 0:04:34.080 --> 0:04:37.760 through the dark. And I mean that literally, because there 0:04:37.800 --> 0:04:42.120 was no working electricity at Bolskine House. In fact, the 0:04:42.160 --> 0:04:44.640 whole place was dilapidated and looked like he could fall 0:04:44.680 --> 0:04:48.520 down at any moment. Malcolm pointed his flashlight to the 0:04:48.600 --> 0:04:52.880 right as another gust rattled the windows. A long, empty 0:04:52.960 --> 0:04:56.560 hallway waited his footsteps, and so he walked until he 0:04:56.600 --> 0:05:00.560 came upon a large dining room, and as he used 0:05:00.600 --> 0:05:03.560 his flashlight to look around, he saw something he'd never 0:05:03.600 --> 0:05:07.919 seen before, at least not in the flesh. There on 0:05:07.960 --> 0:05:12.320 the floor was a large pentagram, hand drawn or maybe 0:05:12.400 --> 0:05:16.039 even carved into the hardwood and enclosed inside a circle 0:05:16.440 --> 0:05:22.600 with a makeshift altar at the center. Malcolm suddenly get 0:05:22.600 --> 0:05:26.279 a feeling he never experienced before. He was confused and 0:05:26.360 --> 0:05:29.360 ill at the same time. It was a feeling of dread. 0:05:30.160 --> 0:05:34.440 His hands began to shake, and then suddenly his flashlight 0:05:34.480 --> 0:05:38.400 went dead. Fucking hell, he muttered, slapping the side of 0:05:38.400 --> 0:05:42.400 the metal casing with the palm of his hand. The 0:05:42.440 --> 0:05:46.680 flashlight sputtered back to life. As it did, Malcolm could 0:05:46.680 --> 0:05:51.159 hear something coming from elsewhere in the house, heavy belabored breathing, 0:05:51.760 --> 0:05:56.760 panting almost and then the panting turned into something else, grawl, 0:05:57.200 --> 0:06:00.560 a snarl, low, and a horse, and then came a 0:06:00.600 --> 0:06:04.560 scratching sound, long nails like talons running up and down 0:06:04.600 --> 0:06:08.240 the length of a wall. Malcolm scanned the room and 0:06:08.279 --> 0:06:10.560 there was nothing else, no one, no one that he 0:06:10.560 --> 0:06:16.279 could see. That is, something was lingering here and he 0:06:16.320 --> 0:06:19.640 certainly couldn't ask Jimmy Page where it was. The city 0:06:19.680 --> 0:06:22.680 of Inverness was over five hundred miles from London, so 0:06:22.760 --> 0:06:24.880 it's not like the guitarist just popped in whenever he 0:06:24.920 --> 0:06:28.520 felt like it. Jimmy bought this place to buy the 0:06:28.560 --> 0:06:32.840 place to feed his obsession, not to live there. And 0:06:32.920 --> 0:06:38.280 again no electricity. There wasn't even a telephone. Damn man. 0:06:38.520 --> 0:06:42.400 Malcolm thought, if only Jimmy were here, he'd be asking 0:06:42.440 --> 0:06:45.960 his boss a lot of questions, because as the scratching 0:06:46.000 --> 0:06:50.120 sound grew louder and closer, Malcolm was beginning to question 0:06:50.360 --> 0:06:58.160 everything he thought he knew. Forty miles south of London, 0:06:58.160 --> 0:07:01.640 in Hampshire, a big, boxy silver van rumbled slowly up 0:07:01.640 --> 0:07:04.240 a the colic country road before coming to a stop 0:07:04.279 --> 0:07:07.800 in front of a large, three story stone building. The 0:07:07.880 --> 0:07:12.040 van housed the Rolling Stone's mobile recording studio, trailing behind 0:07:12.080 --> 0:07:15.400 a few more cars carrying Jimmy Page, Robert Plant, John 0:07:15.440 --> 0:07:19.080 Paul Jones and John Bonham, collectively the group known as 0:07:19.200 --> 0:07:22.640 led Zeppelin. The members of the biggest band in the world, 0:07:22.720 --> 0:07:25.679 stepped from the vehicles, all four of them sporting newly 0:07:25.720 --> 0:07:29.680 grown beards, and gazed up at the impressive English manner 0:07:29.760 --> 0:07:34.680 known as Headley Grange. The place was being swallowed by 0:07:34.760 --> 0:07:39.240 lush green vines, snaking and slithering like the rings of 0:07:39.280 --> 0:07:44.080 a tree. The overgrowth told of Hedley's history, the backbreaking 0:07:44.160 --> 0:07:47.040 toil of the workers who built the house years ago 0:07:47.120 --> 0:07:50.520 in seventeen ninety five, the hordes of the sick and 0:07:50.560 --> 0:07:53.920 the old, for whom it was built, poppers and orphans, 0:07:54.160 --> 0:07:57.720 motherless bastards and other dickenzie and unfortunates who once came 0:07:57.760 --> 0:08:03.960 here seeking refuge, then died here, died as unknowns, as 0:08:04.000 --> 0:08:07.520 the forgotten, the ones who had been cast from society 0:08:07.560 --> 0:08:14.360 and life and now were cursed to hump. Or perhaps 0:08:15.040 --> 0:08:17.400 it was just Jimmy Page who is now thinking of 0:08:17.520 --> 0:08:21.720 these things. Because Jimmy Page got good and giddy when 0:08:21.760 --> 0:08:24.600 he looked up at this place and all it's ruinous glory. 0:08:25.560 --> 0:08:28.480 He could think of nothing more exciting than unleashing his 0:08:28.600 --> 0:08:33.320 band inside such a historic structure, overrun with ghosts of 0:08:33.400 --> 0:08:39.439 centuries past, and that was exactly the plan. Here inside 0:08:39.520 --> 0:08:43.320 the walls of Headley Grange, Zeppelin would rehearse and possibly 0:08:43.360 --> 0:08:47.360 even record songs for their new album, led Zeppelin three. 0:08:47.600 --> 0:08:49.920 You Know, if the Walls could talk and all that. 0:08:52.480 --> 0:08:55.520 Earlier in the year, Jimmy Page and Robert Plant had 0:08:55.559 --> 0:08:59.360 decamped to a place called Bronrh, a remote cottage outside 0:08:59.360 --> 0:09:02.280 a small market town in Wales where Robert used to 0:09:02.360 --> 0:09:06.240 vacation as a child with his family. Inspired by their 0:09:06.280 --> 0:09:09.520 surroundings and far away from the metallic grind of the city, 0:09:10.040 --> 0:09:12.760 this was where Jimmy and Robert first pivoted from the 0:09:12.800 --> 0:09:16.800 heaviness they trafficked in to a more pastoral acoustic sound. 0:09:17.520 --> 0:09:19.240 This is where they wrote many of the songs that 0:09:19.280 --> 0:09:23.040 would make up led Zeppelin III, songs like Friends, Tangerine, 0:09:23.400 --> 0:09:27.960 That's the Way and Naturally veran Rastam. It's also where 0:09:27.960 --> 0:09:29.719 they began to work on songs that would come out 0:09:29.760 --> 0:09:32.760 on future albums, like Over the Hills and Far Away, 0:09:33.240 --> 0:09:37.280 Down by the Seaside and the Rover. They enjoyed it 0:09:37.320 --> 0:09:39.680 so much that they wanted to actually record there with 0:09:39.720 --> 0:09:42.600 the band, but it was too small, So the goal 0:09:42.640 --> 0:09:44.760 became to find a place that could accommodate them all 0:09:44.800 --> 0:09:48.600 but still retain that very specific vibe, and thus, with 0:09:48.679 --> 0:09:51.720 the help of their manager, Peter Grant's secretary, it happened 0:09:51.800 --> 0:09:59.120 upon Henley Grange. Now leaving the white walled, sterile environment 0:09:59.200 --> 0:10:02.079 of a professionals studio for a house in the countryside 0:10:02.320 --> 0:10:05.959 wasn't a new concept for rock bands ever since the 0:10:06.080 --> 0:10:09.440 band hit the scene two years earlier in nineteen sixty 0:10:09.440 --> 0:10:12.440 eight with music from Big Pink, the world of rock 0:10:12.480 --> 0:10:16.640 and roll had pivoted toward a more homegrown, earth bound model. 0:10:16.720 --> 0:10:19.760 But Jimmy Page and Robert Plant and led Zeppelin had 0:10:19.760 --> 0:10:22.640 their own way of doing things. They weren't going on 0:10:22.679 --> 0:10:26.199 a pilgrimage to Woodstock, as George Harrison had, hunting down 0:10:26.200 --> 0:10:28.720 the Bam like a lost soul seeking the hermit's guidance 0:10:28.800 --> 0:10:32.760 on the mountaintop. Jimmy, for one, served as own master. 0:10:33.600 --> 0:10:36.960 Jimmy did what thou wilt. Besides, when it came to 0:10:37.000 --> 0:10:40.720 George Harrison and the Beatles, they were yesterday's news. Led 0:10:40.760 --> 0:10:44.080 Zeppelin had just topped the reader's poll in the UK's 0:10:44.240 --> 0:10:48.200 very influential Melody Maker magazine, the first band in eight 0:10:48.320 --> 0:10:52.360 years to push the Fab four from the number one spot. 0:10:53.200 --> 0:10:57.199 Jimmy threw open Headley's front door almost instantly, he was 0:10:57.280 --> 0:11:00.720 hit with a potent stench, like something at the fermenting 0:11:00.760 --> 0:11:04.400 for decades, and theodor went to Jimmy's head. He was 0:11:04.480 --> 0:11:08.640 drunk on it. Robert ambled in behind him, arching his 0:11:08.720 --> 0:11:10.880 neck and looking to the high ceiling that stretched all 0:11:10.920 --> 0:11:14.520 the way up the winding three floor staircase. With his 0:11:14.640 --> 0:11:17.520 raggedy beard and now this castle of a home to 0:11:17.559 --> 0:11:20.480 make music in, he felt like a character right out 0:11:20.480 --> 0:11:24.400 of Tolkien's Middle Earth. Robert was followed by a Zeppelin's 0:11:24.440 --> 0:11:28.760 rhythm section. Jonesy and Bonzo walked in with these puzzled 0:11:28.800 --> 0:11:31.959 looks on their faces, like here, this is where we're 0:11:31.960 --> 0:11:34.520 going to be hanging out for the next few weeks. 0:11:35.600 --> 0:11:39.160 The place was damp, It was dank. It was lacking 0:11:39.200 --> 0:11:41.640 all the creature comforts that a band like led Zeppelin 0:11:41.679 --> 0:11:45.120 figured they should be indulging in. Bonso had twenty one 0:11:45.160 --> 0:11:48.040 cars for Christ's sakes. For him and for Jonesy, Headly 0:11:48.040 --> 0:11:50.480 looked like some dump you'd squat in when you were 0:11:50.520 --> 0:11:54.040 barely getting by on the come up. But Jimmy Page 0:11:54.200 --> 0:11:58.400 obviously saw something else in the place. He just smiled 0:11:58.440 --> 0:12:03.280 and said, let's get the work voice. Robert nodded, Jonesy 0:12:03.280 --> 0:12:06.720 and Bonzo shrugged their shoulders. Little did any of them 0:12:06.760 --> 0:12:09.800 know that when Jimmy talked about work, he was talking 0:12:09.800 --> 0:12:13.600 about more than just making music. He was talking about 0:12:13.679 --> 0:12:18.360 reviving a spirit that laid dormant inside these walls. Jimmy 0:12:18.360 --> 0:12:46.520 Page was talking about waking something up. The notion of 0:12:46.559 --> 0:12:50.600 a stately house or sprawling manner in the English countryside 0:12:50.600 --> 0:12:53.360 which is very very old, and which also happens to 0:12:53.400 --> 0:12:57.640 be very very haunted, is hardly a novel. One do 0:12:57.720 --> 0:13:00.520 a quick Google search and you'll find more samples of 0:13:00.559 --> 0:13:03.360 haunted houses in the UK. Then you'll know what to 0:13:03.440 --> 0:13:06.079 do with and better yette. I'll just give you a 0:13:06.120 --> 0:13:12.160 few examples. There's Blickling Hall in Norfolk, built in sixteen sixteen, 0:13:12.679 --> 0:13:15.920 where Anne Boleyn, one time Queen of England and the 0:13:15.960 --> 0:13:18.920 second wife of Henry the eighth, still walks around with 0:13:19.000 --> 0:13:23.040 her severed head in her hands. And there's Temple Newsoman 0:13:23.320 --> 0:13:26.240 in West Yorkshire, where he can still hear the screams 0:13:26.240 --> 0:13:29.120 of a nursemaid who was suffocated to death by a 0:13:29.120 --> 0:13:33.360 fellow servant in seventeen oh four. And then there's Little 0:13:33.360 --> 0:13:37.240 Cot House in Berkshire, where a midwife witnessed the murder 0:13:37.280 --> 0:13:40.760 of a baby in fifteen seventy five, and where that 0:13:40.880 --> 0:13:43.360 same midwife can now be seen as a phantom who 0:13:43.360 --> 0:13:45.720 sits in the corner of one of the house's bedrooms, 0:13:46.240 --> 0:13:52.760 rocking an infant against her breasts. This was the tradition 0:13:52.920 --> 0:13:55.560 Jimmy Page was buying into when he moved his band 0:13:55.640 --> 0:13:58.040 out to Headley Grange for sessions in the middle of 0:13:58.120 --> 0:14:02.000 nineteen seventy, and while Jonesy and Bonzo never really warmed 0:14:02.080 --> 0:14:05.360 up to the place, Headley's charms did factor into the 0:14:05.400 --> 0:14:09.560 early stages of great new songs like Immigrant Song, Gallows 0:14:09.600 --> 0:14:12.480 Pole and Out on the Tiles, just to name a 0:14:12.520 --> 0:14:15.320 few of the things they started working on there. But 0:14:15.440 --> 0:14:19.280 before long the urban heads prevailed and the band quickly 0:14:19.320 --> 0:14:22.520 returned to London, where they finished making the album at 0:14:22.560 --> 0:14:28.400 a studio on Basing Street owned by Island Records. When 0:14:28.440 --> 0:14:31.640 Led Zeppelin three was released in October of nineteen seventy, 0:14:32.160 --> 0:14:36.000 many Zeppelin fans focused on Jimmy Page's wizard like production techniques, 0:14:36.040 --> 0:14:40.440 which now included experimental bits of tape echo fly on 0:14:40.480 --> 0:14:43.920 the Wall segues between songs in a blend of electric 0:14:44.000 --> 0:14:48.640 and acoustic instrumentation that masterfully fused the darkness with the light. 0:14:49.360 --> 0:14:53.200 But just as many complained that beyond Immigrant Song, the 0:14:53.240 --> 0:14:56.000 record was lacking in the kind of meat and potato 0:14:56.080 --> 0:14:58.440 rock and roll that their first two albums served up, 0:14:59.160 --> 0:15:02.160 that the boys had gone soft with all that bearded 0:15:02.200 --> 0:15:07.040 folky bullshit. Jimmy Page, on the other hand, saw Zeppelin 0:15:07.120 --> 0:15:11.400 three as a creative success. It proved that in the 0:15:11.480 --> 0:15:15.240 right environment, Led Zeppelin could pull powerful music out of 0:15:15.320 --> 0:15:19.680 thin air. To his ears, the new song sounded better 0:15:19.720 --> 0:15:23.040 than anything they'd ever recorded in a London studio alone, 0:15:24.600 --> 0:15:28.760 and so just a few months later, Jimmy Page convinced 0:15:28.800 --> 0:15:31.400 the band to return to Headley Grange, where he was 0:15:31.440 --> 0:15:36.080 convinced they would make the biggest, most impactful musical statement 0:15:36.480 --> 0:15:42.800 of their career. January nineteen seventy one, at least a 0:15:42.840 --> 0:15:46.040 dozen cables streamed out of the Rolling Stones mobile recording van. 0:15:46.760 --> 0:15:49.200 They threaded across the ground and snaked through one of 0:15:49.240 --> 0:15:52.520 Headley Grange's open windows. All the way into the lobby 0:15:52.640 --> 0:15:56.880 where John Bonham's drum kit was set up. Outside it 0:15:57.000 --> 0:16:01.280 was cold. Inside Headley it was cold, and inside the 0:16:01.360 --> 0:16:06.960 rolling Stones van was also cold. Audio engineer Andy john 0:16:07.080 --> 0:16:09.880 sat in the back of the van, shivering, trying in 0:16:10.000 --> 0:16:12.160 vain to stay warm, while listening on a pair of 0:16:12.200 --> 0:16:15.560 headphones to John Bonham laying down the drum track to 0:16:15.600 --> 0:16:20.480 when the levee breaks. Beginning in Headley's lobby, a large 0:16:20.520 --> 0:16:23.320 staircase wrapped all the way up to the third floor, 0:16:23.880 --> 0:16:26.120 which meant that the ceiling of this particular part of 0:16:26.160 --> 0:16:29.520 the house was three stories high. When a musician says 0:16:29.560 --> 0:16:32.880 that a room has great acoustics, this is the kind 0:16:32.920 --> 0:16:36.320 of thing they're talking about. Two microphones hung from the 0:16:36.440 --> 0:16:40.800 railing on the second floor, dangling above Bonzo's kit. The 0:16:40.880 --> 0:16:46.200 sound of the drums was huge. Back in the van, 0:16:46.800 --> 0:16:50.040 Andy Johns gave that sound a boost. He ran the 0:16:50.080 --> 0:16:53.720 signal through a Binson echo wreck, an old delay effects unit, 0:16:54.400 --> 0:16:57.480 and this is what gives Bonzos drums that slapback sound 0:16:57.560 --> 0:17:01.400 on when the levee breaks. But the fatality of this 0:17:01.520 --> 0:17:04.560 sound of one of the greatest drum tracks of all 0:17:04.680 --> 0:17:08.040 time the environment in which it was recorded, and how 0:17:08.040 --> 0:17:12.080 it was recorded. You couldn't replicate that in some antiseptic 0:17:12.160 --> 0:17:15.320 recording studio back in London. You had to create it 0:17:15.720 --> 0:17:19.119 here in a busted old building that was cold and 0:17:19.240 --> 0:17:24.879 damp and creepy. And that night Andy John's got his 0:17:24.920 --> 0:17:32.359 first taste of creepy. The day's session had gone extremely well, 0:17:32.880 --> 0:17:35.000 and by the looks of the empty bottles littered all 0:17:35.040 --> 0:17:38.680 over the floor, the after party had gone well too. 0:17:38.880 --> 0:17:42.000 In just a few hours, the sun would be up. Andy, 0:17:42.080 --> 0:17:44.200 like everyone else, was dead asleep in one of the 0:17:44.240 --> 0:17:47.480 bedrooms until he was jolted awake by a loud dud. 0:17:49.320 --> 0:17:52.600 He propped himself up on his elbows, his hair a mess, 0:17:52.800 --> 0:17:56.800 his eyelids weighing a ton, and then he heard it. 0:17:58.080 --> 0:18:02.040 The sound of furniture moved around the room directly above him, 0:18:02.160 --> 0:18:09.399 heavy furniture, slow deliberate scrapes. Then the sound stopped. Andy 0:18:09.400 --> 0:18:12.760 sat up straight, and for a moment all he could 0:18:12.800 --> 0:18:14.760 hear was the ringing in his ears from that day's 0:18:14.800 --> 0:18:20.080 recording session. And suddenly the noise upstairs started again, and 0:18:20.200 --> 0:18:24.320 this time louder and faster than before. Andy shot out 0:18:24.320 --> 0:18:26.800 of bed, ran out of his room and bounded up 0:18:26.840 --> 0:18:29.200 the stairs, busting through the door of the room directly 0:18:29.240 --> 0:18:38.080 above his hand. Nothing. The room was completely empty, no furniture, 0:18:38.880 --> 0:18:44.160 not even a single chair. The next morning, over cups 0:18:44.200 --> 0:18:47.200 of hot tea, Andy told the band about the strange 0:18:47.200 --> 0:18:50.040 sounds he'd heard in the middle of the night. Robert 0:18:50.080 --> 0:18:53.480 listened with great interest, and Jonesy was silent, taking it 0:18:53.520 --> 0:18:57.040 all in, and Jimmy just sat back, smiling and nodding 0:18:57.040 --> 0:19:02.120 his head. But John Bonham was aside himself because he'd 0:19:02.200 --> 0:19:06.280 hurt things too. Someone breathing in the corner of his room, 0:19:06.480 --> 0:19:08.840 and no, it wasn't the creaking of an old house 0:19:09.320 --> 0:19:12.120 or the wind or whatever the fuck. Instead, all night 0:19:12.200 --> 0:19:17.480 long there was this deep inhale exhale of another person, 0:19:18.320 --> 0:19:21.840 but there was no one there, and it freaked Bonzo out. 0:19:22.440 --> 0:19:26.080 And Bonzo, being the hulking giant that he was, wasn't 0:19:26.080 --> 0:19:29.159 one to get freaked out easily. He was going to 0:19:29.240 --> 0:19:32.560 sleep downstairs from now on, even if that meant sleeping 0:19:32.560 --> 0:19:37.560 on the floor. Jimmy, on the other hand, wasn't interested 0:19:37.600 --> 0:19:42.680 in sleeping. Hedley didn't make him uneasy, quite the opposite. Actually, 0:19:43.359 --> 0:19:46.560 the energy here got him high. He grabbed his harmony 0:19:46.600 --> 0:19:49.680 acoustic guitar and wandered off to the quiet parts of 0:19:49.720 --> 0:19:53.959 the house. He sat cross legged in cold, unlit rooms 0:19:54.000 --> 0:19:58.440 and messed around with different tunings. He paced hallways while 0:19:58.480 --> 0:20:02.040 strumming new cord patterns. Then he listened as the sound 0:20:02.119 --> 0:20:05.000 from his instrument bounced off the walls and returned to 0:20:05.119 --> 0:20:09.480 his ears. The sounds spoke to him, And then one 0:20:09.520 --> 0:20:15.600 afternoon it happened. Jimmy was in Headley's sitting room, seated 0:20:15.640 --> 0:20:18.919 on a chair next to the fireplace. The boiler in 0:20:18.960 --> 0:20:21.800 the house no longer worked, so this was the only 0:20:21.840 --> 0:20:25.000 way to keep warm. When the fire crackled as Jimmy 0:20:25.040 --> 0:20:28.840 fingerpicked a new chord progression, it was a whining, hypnotic 0:20:28.920 --> 0:20:32.359 ladder of notes, and it inspired Robert, who was sitting 0:20:32.359 --> 0:20:36.520 next to him and began scribbling lyrics in a notebook. Later, 0:20:36.720 --> 0:20:39.119 Robert would say that it was like he wasn't writing 0:20:39.119 --> 0:20:43.760 the words himself, he was the vessel someone or something 0:20:44.160 --> 0:20:50.879 was writing through him. Right then, the fire popped, the 0:20:51.000 --> 0:20:54.520 log shifted, collapsing inward, and set the spray of red 0:20:54.560 --> 0:20:58.119 sparks into the air. Jimmy didn't look up from his guitar, 0:20:58.640 --> 0:21:01.720 and Robert kept writing and by the time the fire 0:21:01.840 --> 0:21:09.320 died down, the song Stairway to Heaven was readied. Weeks later, 0:21:09.840 --> 0:21:13.240 led Zeppelin was back at the studio in London recording 0:21:13.280 --> 0:21:15.800 some final overdubs for the album that fans would come 0:21:15.840 --> 0:21:19.760 to know as a led Zeppelin four. This included Jimmy's 0:21:19.760 --> 0:21:23.480 now iconic guitar solo for Stairway, which he played while 0:21:23.560 --> 0:21:27.679 leaning against a speaker, no headphones on, just playback at 0:21:27.800 --> 0:21:32.360 full blast, his body absorbing every sound while a cigarette 0:21:32.440 --> 0:21:36.600 smoldered in the headstalk of his Dragon telecaster. I just 0:21:36.640 --> 0:21:41.560 winged that solo, really, Jimmy said, Only Jimmy Page could 0:21:41.600 --> 0:21:44.960 wing a solo like that, A solo that unfolded like 0:21:45.000 --> 0:21:47.919 a good book or a good movie, one that had 0:21:47.960 --> 0:21:52.320 a beginning, a middle, and an end, very definitive, super dramatic, 0:21:52.840 --> 0:21:55.200 far out and locked in at the same time, one 0:21:55.240 --> 0:21:57.600 that sounded like it had lived inside of him and 0:21:57.640 --> 0:22:03.399 then escaped and changed everything around him, just like he'd 0:22:03.440 --> 0:22:08.120 lived inside Hedley Grange and changed it. And the next 0:22:08.119 --> 0:22:10.920 time Jimmy went back to that place, it was more 0:22:10.960 --> 0:22:15.000 than obvious that the old house had changed too. In fact, 0:22:15.600 --> 0:22:25.240 it had learned something new. We'll be right back after this, 0:22:25.480 --> 0:22:45.920 We're We're Where. In November of nineteen seventy three, exactly 0:22:45.960 --> 0:22:49.680 two years after it was originally released, Led Zeppelin four, 0:22:50.080 --> 0:22:53.679 the album with Stairway to Heaven as its centerpiece, was 0:22:53.840 --> 0:22:57.920 still riding high on the charts, as was its successor, 0:22:58.200 --> 0:23:01.280 the most excellent Houses of the Holy, which had been 0:23:01.320 --> 0:23:06.359 released just months earlier in seventy three. As usual, it 0:23:06.400 --> 0:23:09.080 didn't matter if a writer for Rolling Stone called Houses 0:23:09.119 --> 0:23:11.560 of the Holy quote one of the dullest and most 0:23:11.600 --> 0:23:15.840 confusing albums I've heard this year unquote, which they one 0:23:16.560 --> 0:23:19.840 did say, can you fucking believe that the song remains 0:23:19.880 --> 0:23:23.800 the same the rain song, over the freakin' hills and 0:23:23.920 --> 0:23:28.400 far away? Dull and confusing? None of it mattered because 0:23:28.440 --> 0:23:32.680 Led Zeppelin were untouchable. Zeppelin where Reggie Jackson and Pete 0:23:32.760 --> 0:23:37.120 Rose combined, untouchable, and to continue with the sports metaphor, 0:23:37.520 --> 0:23:40.720 the same year, they played shows in ballparks and football 0:23:40.760 --> 0:23:43.439 stadiums on a godlike scale. I'm talking about shows like 0:23:43.440 --> 0:23:45.680 the one in Tampa, Florida, where they played for over 0:23:45.760 --> 0:23:49.120 fifty six thousand people and raked in over three hundred grand, 0:23:49.119 --> 0:23:52.560 which at the time was the single most profitable performance 0:23:52.880 --> 0:23:57.119 in the history of show business, steamrolling a record previously 0:23:57.160 --> 0:24:02.480 held by the Beatles, and were rock and roll gods, 0:24:02.640 --> 0:24:05.680 and they were bringing the hammer down night after night. 0:24:06.280 --> 0:24:09.520 And a big part of this unprecedented success, as Jimmy 0:24:09.520 --> 0:24:13.359 Page saw it, was their unorthodox decision to continue to 0:24:13.400 --> 0:24:20.040 go back to the well at Headley Grange. But when 0:24:20.040 --> 0:24:23.080 they returned in the spring of nineteen seventy four to 0:24:23.160 --> 0:24:26.439 begin work on their sixth studio album, none of them 0:24:26.520 --> 0:24:30.480 knew it would be their final visit. Robert, Jonesy and 0:24:30.560 --> 0:24:34.280 Bonzo did know that this time would be different, and 0:24:34.320 --> 0:24:36.800 then all three of them refused to stay at Headley 0:24:36.840 --> 0:24:40.960 Grange anymore. The place was deteriorating worse than ever, and 0:24:41.080 --> 0:24:45.119 the vines outside were thicker. The dampness was now wetness. 0:24:45.440 --> 0:24:50.400 It smelled of slimy stone and rotten and plus Bonzo 0:24:50.480 --> 0:24:55.560 wasn't fucking around anymore with disembodied breathing. So while the 0:24:55.600 --> 0:24:58.119 three of them checked into the Posh Friends and Pond 0:24:58.160 --> 0:25:02.040 Hotel and spa three mile up the road, Jimmy held 0:25:02.080 --> 0:25:07.000 down the ford at Headley alone, and by day the 0:25:07.080 --> 0:25:10.560 quartet tracked the new record by tapping into that magic 0:25:11.000 --> 0:25:14.080 magic were the k the telepathic bond that made them 0:25:14.119 --> 0:25:17.200 who they were, that made them better and more successful 0:25:17.359 --> 0:25:20.160 than all the rest of the bands, a bond strengthened 0:25:20.200 --> 0:25:23.639 and driven by whatever spirit Jimmy Page had revived up 0:25:23.640 --> 0:25:28.160 there at Headley Grange. The songs kept coming. Custard Pie 0:25:28.280 --> 0:25:32.160 in the Light, trampled under foot, Cashmere and by night 0:25:32.760 --> 0:25:36.520 Robert Plant, John Paul Jones and John Bonham. They packed up, 0:25:36.800 --> 0:25:40.439 leaving Jimmy Page to his own devices at Headley, and 0:25:40.560 --> 0:25:47.840 that's when the house really started to come alive. You 0:25:47.920 --> 0:25:51.280 hear it first on the wind, not unlike the wind 0:25:51.280 --> 0:25:53.720 that blows in off lockness at your placed in the 0:25:53.760 --> 0:25:57.359 Scottish Highlands, where Malcolm Dent is learning to live with 0:25:57.440 --> 0:26:01.600 the things that the naked eye can't see. Long, low 0:26:01.800 --> 0:26:05.440 moans drift from the hall upstairs, and then you hear 0:26:05.440 --> 0:26:10.639 footsteps and they're slow, pacing back and forth, like someone 0:26:10.720 --> 0:26:15.000 is walking a guard shift. You grab not a flashlight 0:26:15.480 --> 0:26:18.920 but a candle, because it fits your mood, it fits 0:26:19.320 --> 0:26:23.919 Headly's mood. You light it and walk, guided by the 0:26:23.920 --> 0:26:27.200 flickering light, from the sitting room over to the lobby 0:26:27.560 --> 0:26:32.680 to that big winding staircase once you heard Bonzo playing 0:26:32.720 --> 0:26:35.400 the shit out of the drums right here, and now 0:26:35.480 --> 0:26:42.600 you just hear the house. Then up ahead, look there, 0:26:42.600 --> 0:26:45.680 going up the stairs to the second floor, you see it, 0:26:45.800 --> 0:26:50.720 a tall, thin figure, a gray man, shimmering and translucent. 0:26:51.520 --> 0:26:55.200 You can feel it beckoning you, calling to you. If 0:26:55.240 --> 0:26:58.520 it's speaking, it's not a language that you can understand, 0:26:58.560 --> 0:27:02.719 but you can make out the intent. It's set telepathy 0:27:03.480 --> 0:27:07.840 magic with that big king. He pulls you and you follow, 0:27:08.359 --> 0:27:11.520 the flame on top of your candle, nearly extinguishing as 0:27:11.560 --> 0:27:14.440 you hustle up the first flight of stairs. You get 0:27:14.440 --> 0:27:18.679 to the top and keep following the gray man ahead, 0:27:18.720 --> 0:27:21.000 coming in and out of focus, stucking into that room 0:27:21.000 --> 0:27:25.280 that Andy John's investigated years ago, the one from which 0:27:25.400 --> 0:27:28.199 loud noises arose in the middle of the night, but 0:27:28.280 --> 0:27:32.879 where there was nothing, well, one man's nothing being another 0:27:32.920 --> 0:27:36.680 man's everything. You follow in the gray man's footsteps, and 0:27:36.760 --> 0:27:39.520 the flame in your hand burning brighter and hotter now, 0:27:40.240 --> 0:27:42.920 and then as you pass through the threshold, the door 0:27:43.040 --> 0:27:53.159 slams shut behind you. Audio engineer ron Nevison arrived at 0:27:53.160 --> 0:27:57.240