Cara-de-sonsa

"I'll be sure to stay weary of you, love, to save the pain of Once my flame and twice my burn..."

Led Zeppelin's "In My Time of Dying" was released on their sixth album Physical Graffiti; it is the third song on the album, and closes Side 1 of the album's original double-LP configuration. At 11:05, it is the longest studio track on any Led Zeppelin studio album, but contains no long instrumental passages despite its extended timing. As Physical Graffiti was exceptionally successful commercially, achieving RIAA 16x Platinum status, Led Zeppelin's rendition of the song is probably the most widely known one.

Lyrical inspiration for their version appears to come from Blind Willie Johnson's recording. Despite this, however, Led Zeppelin's version of the song is credited to the group's musicians Jimmy Page, Robert Plant, John Paul Jones and John Bonham, and is registered with the copyright association ASCAP with the unique title code 390282185.[6]

Jimmy Page's guitar tuning for this song is an open A chord (E / A / E / A / C# / E from bottom to top), and (with "What Is and What Should Never Be"), and "Travellin' Riverside Blues" is one of the most recognizable instances of Page's slide playing on a Led Zeppelin recording. John Paul Jones played a fretless bass. Meanwhile, the distinctive, powerful drumming sounds of John Bonham were recorded in the same way as those on the track "When the Levee Breaks" from Led Zeppelin's fourth album.[7]

Because of its improvisational nature the band never had a rehearsed ending for the song. The studio version ends with: "I'm going to make it my dyin', dyin', dyin'..." After a few seconds of silence followed by a dramatically-feigned coughing fit (likely by John Bonham) is heard. Playing along, Plant quips "cough" as an apt final word for the song. Bonham can then be heard exclaiming, "That's gonna be the one, isn't it?", referring to that particular take. This is followed by a different voice (likely that of recording engineer Andy Johns) saying through the talk-back microphone "Come have a listen, then." Bonham then releases the clutch of his hi-hat and says (rather sheepishly) "Oh, yes. Thank you."

In the May 2008 issue of Uncut Magazine, Page elaborated on the humorous reaction in the studio which can be heard at the end of the song:

We were just having such a wonderful time. Look, we had a framework for "In My Time Of Dying", Ok, but then it just takes off and we're just doing what Led Zeppelin do. We're jamming. We're having a ball. We. Are. Playing.[8]

"In My Time of Dying" was played during Led Zeppelin's 1975 and 1977 concert tours, where Robert Plant dedicated the song to the British Labour Party's Chancellor of the Exchequer, Denis Healey. When played live, the band tuned the song down one step. Although performed in 1977, Plant initially was not keen on singing the song after suffering a near-fatal car crash in 1975, due to its fatalistic lyrical theme.[7] This was one of the few live songs where Page switched to his black and white Danelectro guitar, which he also used for "White Summer" and "Kashmir". One live version of "In My Time of Dying", from Led Zeppelin's performance at Earls Court on May 24, 1975, is featured on disc 2 of the Led Zeppelin DVD, and its promotional sampler.

cara-de-sonsa listens to Led Zeppelin: In my time of dying