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Like the morsel before it, this clip is another example of a common rhythm trick heard at the beginning of songs. If you’ve never heard this song before, or you haven’t heard it in a while, you may be tricked by the opening phrase, which innocently sounds like the count starts on the very first note. What’s not clear until the drums drop into the groove is that the downbeat actually starts an 8th note late, deceiving your expectations in the process. Many of us have been fooled by this kind of thing many times, and will continue to be fooled by it. It’s so effective, that sometimes you can re-listen to the same introduction repeatedly, and hear it the “wrong way” every time. One interesting question worth posing is whether Led Zeppelin did this intentionally or not. It’s entirely possible that they didn’t.

Music Morsels are musical fragments, collected and analyzed.

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This is a neat little trick that you hear from time to time at the beginning of songs. The song starts out in 6/8, with an eighth note pulse implied by the only parts you can hear. However, when the drums come, they imply a different pulse and a new tempo, and that changes your whole rhythmic perception of the song. The drums play out in 4/4, but the original rhythm section continues on at its original speed, which creates a metric modulation. The former pulse of the song (the rhythm of the guitar), now sounds off as sextuplets in relationship to the drums.

Music Morsels are musical fragments, collected and analyzed.