After dropping off Cindy for an appointment and having 30 minutes in the area of The Frugal Muse (and after having luck at West Side Half Price Books again) I decided to see if there was anything I missed, or any new stock.

Man. Am I glad I did.

The shelf of records was all leaning to the right, and as I squatted down and flipped the whole shelf to the left so I could see the covers I saw this:

“Led Zeppelin – Led Zeppelin”

OMG! Led Zeppelin. I couldn’t believe my eyes. I never expected to run into anything like this in the record bins. This record is SO iconic. I never owned this on vinyl myself, just the CD. So this was an incredible find. Ugh. It was $9.99. Someone knew it was more valuable than the rest of their $1.98 and $2.98 records. How could I NOT buy this though, come on! When I got this on CD it was my first Zeppelin CD. I would crank it and I loved all the blues covers that they did that I was beginning to learn about. I even made a tape that had both the Willie Dixon version of “You Shook Me” along with the Zeppelin version. The “I Can’t Quit You Babe” tracks as well. It was cool to get behind the way they were influenced by the blues scene. You would think they just dropped out of nowhere. Jimmy Page was of course in a long lineup of bands that were blending blues and rock and this album was a product of that amazing education.

Then, to my amazement, right behind that Led Zeppelin, was more…

“Led Zeppelin – Physical Graffitti”

OMG MORE Zeepelin! This one I HAD owned on vinyl and loved. The window in the lower left was missing its divider, but otherwise the double album looked in pretty good shape… and it was a double album marked at $9.98. I put that one in my pile too. I can recall coming home from high school and cranking “In My Time Of Dying” while I devoured endless bowls of cereal. This album also had “Kashmir” which was an undeniable classic. All the songs were good on this album, but I played side 1 and 2 more often than 3 and 4. I opted to put the half folded insert that put the letters for the album name in the windows in between the individual record sleeves so that the pictures would show through the window.

For the record, side 2 included the track “Houses Of The Holy” which I loved, but always confused me as to why they would name an entire album after a track on a previous album. As it turns out, that was the next record in the pile.

“Led Zeppelin – Houses Of The Holy”

Still more OMG! Only $4.98. Now this one I did own on vinyl. I remember buying it at a mall record store and being slightly weirded out by the cover and wondered if the clerk was going to judge me silently. On top of that I had no idea what songs were on it. Like “Physical Graffitti” there were no songs listed on the back. It was just a giant picture of purple tinged nude young boys and girls. It was Led Zeppelin though and I knew I had to have it, so I marched up defiantly to the clerk and plunked it down. Judge me if you will, but I will rock to this!

When I got it home and played “The Crunge” it was alll worth it. This album for me was Zeppelin that was starting to change and I always felt it was slightly mysterious. “Over The Hills And Far Away” is probably my favorite Zeppelin track, though every song on this album is classic, even the “D’yer Mak’er” track. You gotta give the boys room to give their musical shout outs.

Weirdest lyric on the album: “I told your mama I’d get you home, but I didn’t tell her I had no car, I saw a lion he was standing alone, with a tadpole in a jar.”

The whole cover

and the inside

I played this to death in my room. I felt like with the purchase of this album I could officially say I was a Led Zeppelin fan. Owning this album and talking to the dudes at school about it helped me fit into a lot of different groups. It seemed everyone like this album, no matter what their “normal” level of rocking was. Curiously, again, they named a whole album off of a track on this one. The track “The Song Remains The Same” became the name of their concert film soundtrack.

And IT was there TOO!

“Led Zeppelin – The Song Remains The Same”

My OMG was worn out by this time, but I was stoked to have this. It was a double for $4.98 again. Woo hoo! Now, I never owned this one, which is odd, particularly because of my penchant for getting the live album from a band often times first. I did see the movie eventually on cable. I was very impressed. The whole Robert Plant rock god and Jimmy with his bowing on the guitar and the use of the weird instrument the Theremin. It was awesome. However, if you can cut out all the stupid fantasy sequences it would be much better.

So the music is great of course… but who did the album art? FAIL.

That concluded the Zeppelin in the pile, but right behind them was this.

“Van Halen – Van Halen”

Wow. Another classic that I could not leave behind. Only $2.98! This rocked my Ann Arbor bedroom endlessly along with “Van Halen – II”. They are the perfect pair of Van Halen albums and now I have them both. I’m a David Lee Roth fan, sorry no Van Hagar for me. Ick.

This one has all the greats on it. “You Really Got Me”, “Jamie’s Cryin'”, “Ice Cream Man” and really every song is great. Of course it has “Eruption” for your guitar string melting pleasure as well. David Lee Roth is classic. This picture of him on the back is crazy.

My original copy had a skip (caused by me, ugh) in the intro to “Running With The Devil”. Hopefully this one will be better, though I’m sure I will mentally brace for it every time I listen to this.

There were others in the pile too that I wanted, but with the Zeppelin I was already WAY over what I wanted to spend. So I took my other selections and said a small prayer over them and hid them in the middle of the shelf.

I’ll be back for you my sweets.