1969: Led Zeppelin, Led Zeppelin II

By Raye Hendrix

My life began in a place populated by people readying themselves to die. I mean this both literally and figuratively. The latter, of course, refers to the hyper-evangelical brand of Christianity the Deep South is infamous for: nearly everyone you meet is obsessed with the condition of their immortal soul. Unfortunately for those of us who aren’t all that worried, many of those people extend this obsession to other people and make their ideology everyone else’s problem. The Deep South is also famous for its hospitality, and it’s true that anybody would happily give a stranger the shirt off their back without a second thought, but that kindness is often tempered by a deep distrust of any deviation from conservative, Christian norms. Difference is a contagion to be avoided; parents maneuver their kids carefully away from gay uncles, liberals, suggestive music, and anyone who participates in premarital sex, lest the Devil corrupt their children’ souls. 

Then there’s the literal version. I grew up in a makeshift retirement community on a one-lane road that looped around a man-made lake carved into a forested valley where the Appalachian Trail begins to fizzle out. The valley was populated almost entirely by elderly retirees looking for a quiet, idyllic place to live out their final years. Despite the lack of company my age, most of the time it was a great place to live—except that I was a tomboyish, baby queer with only my sister to hang out with and generally fuck all to do, which meant that as I got older and started understanding my desire, the valley began to feel like a beautiful, inescapable closet. A neighbor called me a “lezzy dyke” long before I had any clue what that meant, but I knew it was an insult from the way the words were spat like they were a piss-soaked, shameful secret. 

My sister and I weren’t allowed to listen to much other than country or gospel music, but those were pretty much the only reliable radio stations we could get in the valley anyway. Sometimes, though, my parents would break out their cassette collection for long drives, and they’d play some of their favorites from their pre-kid years. It leaned towards the more pop and disco sounds of The Beach Boys, Michael Jackson, and Earth, Wind, and Fire, but every now and then they’d slip some classic rock into the mix—mostly The Beatles, Steppenwolf, and Kansas. Those were my gateway bands. When I was alone, I started skimming the staticky radio channels on my Walkman for snatches of crunchy guitars, squinting my eyes shut to focus on the sound through the distortion. It was in one of these moments, lying in the summer sun baking the vacant lot beside our house, that I caught the tail-end of Led Zeppelin’s “What Is and What Should Never Be” coming through my headphones with a clarity that made it feel like a message from God.

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Nothing about Led Zeppelin’s sophomore album has what I would define as an overtly queer affect, but as a queer kid growing up in rural Alabama in the 90s and early 00s, it did have something I desperately craved: movement. Led Zeppelin II is, in a word, restless. Written and recorded over the course of a seemingly endless world tour, the album came together while on the road in studios across the United Kingdom and North America between January and August of 1969 and released in October of the same year. The tracks are absolutely dripping with movement: they feel sweat-soaked and rootless, speeding toward something that is somehow always on the horizon. 

Compared to their debut album’s slow, bluesy sound, II travels at a breakneck pace. And while Led Zeppelin I does at times break containment, II seems mostly interested in refusing containment outright. The album is an explosion of growth from their debut, and it's evident in the wildness of many of the tracks, but especially in “Moby Dick,” the instrumental, penultimate track with John Bonham's 2-minute drum solo that seems to be always moving forward, tipping over some edge. Even in its slower songs, “Thank You” and “Bring It on Home,” the calm is unsustainable. There’s an excitement hovering just beneath the surface, itching to break through—and it always does. Coming in right around the album’s halfway point, “Thank You” at first seems like a reprieve as the album’s only song that could at times be called quiet. Still, despite its slower time-signature and mellow, acoustic sound, it erupts with swelling moments of John Bonham’s speedy drum riffs and Robert Plant’s famous gravelly, high-pitched screams before fading out into “Heartbreaker’s” grungy opening bass. It’s a love song, but not one you can slow-dance to. Then there’s the final song of the album, “Bring It on Home,” which opens in the style of blues musician Sonny Boy Williamson (the song’s original performer), followshas a similar trajectory. At first mirroring the meandering, bluesy folk-rock of Led Zeppelin’s first album—complete with harmonica—“Bring It on Home” builds over the first minute and a half before it bursts, courtesy of Jimmy Page’s energetic guitar. 

My favorite track, then and now, is “Ramble On.” For the longest time, the only copy I had of “Ramble On” was as a single-song cassette tape recorded from the radio that cut off the first ten or so seconds and included the first moments of a commercial at the end, but that was enough. As a Lord of the Rings-obsessed, country, queer kid, it helped satisfy my need to run. In the galloping drumbeats of “Ramble On,” Frodo’s long, lonely journey to Mordor became my long, lonely journey through the valley. I could hop on my bike and imagine myself a Hobbit with a precious secret and a future somewhere else. Plant would sing in the second verse, “Got no time for spreading roots,” and then, no longer a Hobbit, I would transform into an Ent, capable of picking up my own roots like feet and planting them anywhere and everywhere I wanted. And even though I knew Frodo’s fate, in “Ramble On,” I was allowed to still be uncertain and searching for mine. In the song, nothing was ever settled, and I didn’t have to be either. Rather than having a distinct final note, the track instead fades out with the repetition of the line, “I keep rambling, baby.” That restlessness and rootlessness was intoxicating. It was movement and possibility in a world that often seemed to have no place for someone like me. It made me feel like I had a horizon worth chasing after.

I’m “out” now—of the closet, of the valley, of Alabama—but back then, listening to Led Zeppelin II was a means of figurative escape, not only from the rigid social and religious constructs that kept me afraid and in the closet, but also from the valley itself. II was my conduit for imagining myself outside of the physical boundaries of my place. Even now, listening to this album—and in particular “Ramble On”—is a kind of escape ritual for me. I have to play “Ramble On” anytime I fly, starting the song exactly at the moment the wheels leave the tarmac, and I listen to the rest of Zeppelin II while in the air. Only if I do this does it feel right or even safe for the plane to land. And just in case something happens and I can’t listen—my phone dies, or my headphones break—I have a failsafe: a cassette tape with the words “Ramble On” in my handwriting, like the one I had as a kid, tattooed on my arm as proof of my escape. 

Raye Hendrix is a writer from Alabama. Raye is the author of the micro-chapbook, Fire Sermons (Ghost City Press) and the Poetry Editor of Press Pause Press. The winner of the 2019 Keene Prize for Literature and the 2018 Patricia Aakhus Award, Raye’s work has been featured by Poetry Daily, 32 Poems, Poetry Northwest, Southern Indiana Review, The Chattahoochee Review, Shenandoah, The Pinch, The Adroit Journal, and elsewhere. Raye currently lives with her partner and cats in the Pacific Northwest where she is a PhD student at the University of Oregon, working at the intersections of American Poetry & Poetics, Deafness, and Disability. You can find more of her work at rayehendrix.com.