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1971, Led Zeppelin Stopped Playing This Song Because It Was So Difficult to Perform Live
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1971, Led Zeppelin Stopped Playing This Song Because It Was So Difficult to Perform Live

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Led Zeppelin are one of the most respected bands in history. But there is one track the rock icons stopped playing live due to its intricacy and unusual time signature.

Led Zeppelin stopped playing their track “Four Sticks” live after 1971 because of its extreme rhythmic complexity and shifting time signatures. To an untrained ear, the song doesn’t sound chaotic, but its frenzied sound is hard to achieve live.

Far Out Magazine notes that |”The drumming pattern lifts from a 5/4 verse section to a 6/8, and in the studio,’ it proved to be quite the challenge for Bonham to get his sticks around.”

According to bassist John Paul Jones, it took “ages” to get a “grip on the song.“ Appearing on L ed Zeppelin IV , allotted between the “Misty Mountain Hop” and “Going to California,” “Four Sticks” is a hard-hitting, hypnotic rock track inspired by Ginger Baker.

“I seemed to be the only one who could actually count things in. Page would play something, and [John would] say, ‘That’s great. Where’s the first beat?…

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