A FEW DAYS pt 3

This album is something pretty new for me. i'm not very familiar with a lot of the songs that are on this, i feel like they all sort of sounded the same for a while. but it also just seemed to have a weird feel to it, and maybe because one of the only songs i remember listening to was Hats Off to (Roy) Harper. but listening to it in context to the previous album and being more familiar with the next album, makes me think a sort of different way about it. Jimmy Page wrote the songs on II while he was on the road in midst of a tour, and he wrote these songs in a cottage in Wales that had no electricity. knowing this, it sort of makes sense with the way this record turned out. there's really only one song that sounds like the blues, and the others sound like freak out farm songs. as the first two albums sort of tested the limits of the standard blues sound, these songs do the same with folk music. Jimmy Page was apparently really into John Fahey and Bert Jansch. some songs are obvious nods, like Bron-Y-Aur Stomp, but some are more underlying. Gallows Pole, for example is a shuffly rock song until a fast picked banjo enters nearly halfway through. and then it completely changes the mindset from something that could be played at an arena and something that could be played in a barn. it's an interesting contrast, and i don't think that it was a conscious decision on their part to change things in a drastic way, but it seems to be something important. i think the sound started to become more visual at this point, which i definitely think is true of the music they were yet to make.