Turn Me On, Dead Man

"Dazed and Confused" from Led Zeppelin's 1969 debut album was one of the group's signature numbers. The songwriting credits list Jimmy Page as the sole author of this song, but "Dazed and Confused" was originally written by Jake Holmes and included on his 1967 album The Above Ground Sound of Jake Holmes. A 1990 interview with Jimmy Page in Musician is revealing.

MUSICIAN: I understand "Dazed and Confused" was originally a song by Jake Holmes. Is that true?
PAGE: [Sourly] I don't know. I don't know. [Inhaling] I don't know about all that.
MUSICIAN: Do you remember the process of writing that song?
PAGE: Well, I did that with the Yardbirds originally.... The Yardbirds were such a good band for a guitarist to play in that I came up with a lot of riffs and ideas out of that, and I employed quite a lot of those in the early Zeppelin stuff.
MUSICIAN: But Jake Holmes, a successful jingle writer in New York, claims on his 1967 record that he wrote the original song.
PAGE: Hmm. Well, I don't know. I don't know about that. I'd rather not get into it because I don't know all the circumstances. What's he got, The riff or whatever? Because Robert wrote some of the lyrics for that on the album. But he was only listening to...we extended it from the one that we were playing with the Yardbirds.
MUSICIAN: Did you bring it into the Yardbirds?
PAGE: No, I think we played it 'round a sort of melody line or something that Keith [Relf] had. So I don't know. I haven't heard Jake Holmes so I don't know what it's all about anyway. Usually my riffs are pretty damn original [laughs] What can I say?

The interviewer let the matter go at this point, but the article adds the following footnote: "The acoustic "Dazed and Confused" on The Above Ground Sound of Jake Holmes (Tower Records ST 5079, June 1967) is very, very close to Led Zeppelin's 1969 version, musically and lyrically." [1]

It's commonly acknowledged that Jimmy Page had heard Jake Holmes play "Dazed and Confused" before the Yardbirds (and Led Zeppelin, of course) began performing the number. Stephen Davis writes that the Yardbirds heard Jake Holmes at Café a Go Go during a stint in New York in 1967, and they were impressed with his performance of "Dazed and Confused," which they felt was "a brilliant number—dramatic, frightening, and very stealable." [2]A somewhat different account comes from Greg Russo, who asserts that on August 25, 1967, Jake Holmes opened for the Yardbirds at the Village Theater in Greenwich Village. Jim McCarty and Jimmy Page were so impressed with Holmes's performance that each of them went out and bought a copy of The Above Ground Sound of Jake Holmes. [3]Greg Russo is perhaps the more credible source, as he is the author of Yardbirds: The Ultimate Rave-Up. He also wrote the liner notes for the 2003 EMI reissue of Little Games, the last studio album released by the Yardbirds. This reissue adds a number of tracks, including a live performance of "Dazed and Confused" recorded for the BBC in March, 1968. By that point, "Dazed and Confused" had become part of the Yardbirds live repertoire. The Yardbirds did not record a studio version of "Dazed and Confused" for release on any of their albums, but it was included on Live Yardbirds Featuring Jimmy Page, a concert recorded at the Anderson Theater in New York on March 30, 1968. Epic released Live Yardbirds Featuring Jimmy Page in 1971 to capitalize on Jimmy Page's success in Led Zeppelin, but they did so without the permission of the Yardbirds and carelessly listed the title of "Dazed and Confused" as "I'm Confused." Reportedly Jimmy Page was displeased with the recording quality of Live Yardbirds and he was horrified to find that "the producer had tacked on bullfight cheers and sound effects of clinking glasses to make the concert sound 'live.' [4]Jimmy Page has gone to some lengths to keep this album off the market.

Comparing the versions of "Dazed and Confused" by Jake Holmes, the Yardbirds, and Led Zeppelin is revealing. The structure of Jake Holmes's version of the song is as follows:

Theme A	the descending pattern
Verse 1	over theme A
Verse 2	over theme A
Theme B	instrumental section with a syncopated tapping rhythm and a psychedelic guitar solo
Verse 3	over theme A
Theme B	to abrupt ending

The structure of Led Zeppelin's version of "Dazed and Confused" is similar to Jake Holmes's version, but the Led Zeppelin version features original lyrics (other than the repeated title line) and adds some elements not present in Jake Holmes's recording. Here is the structure of "Dazed and Confused" as Led Zeppelin recorded it for Led Zeppelin I:

Theme A	the descending pattern
Verse 1	over theme A
Theme A
Verse 2	over theme A
Guitar break
Theme A
Verse 3	over theme A
Guitar break
Theme B	call and response between vocals and guitar to psychedelic guitar solo
Theme C	uptempo 4/4 section with guitar solo
Guitar break
Theme A
Verse 4	over theme A
Guitar break
Theme B	to end

Led Zeppelin's version of "Dazed and Confused" is twice as long as Jake Holmes's original version of the song and includes a few elements that are original. Led Zeppelin's version has four verses (of almost all original lyrics) rather than three, and verses 2 through 4 in Led Zeppelin's version conclude with an original guitar break. Also, although they maintained the same time signature, Led Zeppelin's theme B has a different rhythm than Jake Holmes used. Where Jake Holmes had employed a syncopated rhythm, Led Zeppelin uses a straight 1-and-2-and-3 rhythm that alternates among the various members of the band. Over that rhythm, Led Zeppelin engages in a call-and-response between Jimmy Page's guitar and Robert Plant's vocals, but like the Jake Holmes version this section culminates in a psychedelic guitar solo. The real departure from Jake Holmes comes when Led Zeppelin break into an uptempo 4/4 solo section. This section ends with a power chord riff before returning to the 12/8-time guitar break used throughout the track. Like Jake Holmes, Led Zeppelin close out the track by returning to Theme B.

In his 1990 interview with Musician, Jimmy Page claimed, "we extended it from the one that we were playing with the Yardbirds," [5]but this does not stand up to scrutiny. The earliest recording of the Yardbirds version of "Dazed and Confused" was recorded live for Top Gear Programme at the Playhouse Theatre in Hulme, Manchester, on March 6, 1968, and was included on the 2003 EMI reissue of Little Games. The structure of this version is as follows:

Theme A	the descending pattern
Verse 1	over theme A
Theme A
Verse 2	over theme A
Guitar break
Theme A
Verse 3	over theme A
Guitar break
Theme B	guitar and harmonica to psychedelic guitar solo
Theme C	uptempo 4/4 section with guitar solo
Guitar break
Theme A
Verse 1	over theme A
Guitar break
Theme B	to end

As you can see, the Led Zeppelin version of "Dazed and Confused" is nearly identical to the Yardbirds' version. All of the elements of Led Zeppelin's version are present in this recording by the Yardbirds: theme B with its 1-and-2-and-3 rhythm traded among the members of the band, the uptempo 4/4 solo section, and the guitar break. The main difference between the Yardbirds' version and Led Zeppelin's version is the lyrics. Keith Relf sings Jake Holmes's original lyrics in this recording, reprising to the first verse to conclude the track. By the end of March, 1968, however, Keith Relf had changed some of the lyrics. In the version of "Dazed and Confused" on Live Yardbirds Featuring Jimmy Page, recorded some three weeks later, the Yardbirds played only three verses, all of which featured some revised lyrics. It should be pointed out, however, that Robert Plant did not use any of Keith Relf's lyrics. As stated earlier, Robert Plant wrote all original lyrics for "Dazed and Confused," with the exception of the title line. One thing commonly repeated is that in changing the lyrics, Robert Plant changed the meaning of the song. According to the liner notes for James Patrick Page: Session Man, "Dazed and Confused" has a "sinster descending bass scale and jittery paranoid lyrics that described a bad acid trip." [6]According to Jake Holmes, however, despite the psychedelic elements in the reocrding, "Dazed and Confused" is not about taking LSD. Like the Led Zeppelin version, this song is about the difficulties of a failing relationship. [7]Still, Robert Plant's lyrics are original, if a bit more misogynistic than Jake Holmes's lyrics ("Soul of a woman was created below").

It's clear that Jimmy Page had heard Jake Holmes's version of "Dazed and Confused" before the Yardbards performed the song, let alone before Led Zeppelin recorded it for their first album. Jake Holmes has never received any acknowledgement or compensation for "Dazed and Confused." In an interview with Will Shade, Jake Holmes revealed that he did approach Led Zeppelin several years after the release of Led Zeppelin I about the authorship of "Dazed and Confused". No one from Led Zeppelin replied to Holmes' queries and he didn't pursue the matter. [8]Why he chose to do this is puzzling, because he deserves credit for writing "Dazed and Confused."

Recommended Listening

		Jake Holmes - The Above Ground Sound of Jake Holmes This release, along with the rest of Jake Holmes's catalog, has recently come back in print on a label called It's About Music.com.
		The Yardbirds - Live Yardbirds Featuring Jimmy Page Good luck finding this one. Jimmy Page took legal action to have this album taken off the market. A number of bootleg reissues of this album have appeared from time to time on LP and CD, but this remains a difficult recording to find.
		The Yardbirds - Little Games The 2003 EMI reissue of Little Games contains a version of "Dazed and Confused" recordedon March 6, 1968, for the BBC program Top Gear.

Compilations of Original Versions

"Dazed and Confused" by Jake Holmes is included on Zeppelin Classics.