Punk Musician Listens to LED ZEPPELIN "Gallows Pole" For The First Time! Reaction

[@helenespaulding7562]

This is the Zeppelin version of a very old English folk song! There was allot of folk influence on Zep III. Really surprised people. I bought this album when it came out…..and had it in my collection for decades. Zep is SO diverse! One of my top two bands. (Floyd is the other)

[@ronaldmorgan7632]

My top three are LZ,Floyd,Yes, with The Warning slowly moving up through the ranks.

[@rollotomassi6232]

💯

[@willyroussel3563]

The mighty Led Zeppelin making banjo rock.

[@matthew6427]

When I heard this record, my favorite LZ album, I really started appreciating more acoustic/folk music. Bought an acoustic, a mandolin, even a fiddle after that music really touched my soul. This entire album is perfect imo. Not a stinker on it!

[@mmcpa]

It's refreshing in today's music to stumble across a reaction to such a classic song. Great reaction, and BTW excellent audio quality.

[@waynebenedict5785]

The Hammer of the Gods! This was one of my favorites from first listen in the 70's!

[@henriettaskolnick4445]

This song is along the UK folk/US bluegrass style; which makes sense since American bluegrass is UK folk music that English, Irish, and Scots settlers brought over to the United States. There are 6-string and 12-string acoustic guitars, electric guitar, mandolin played by JPJ, and as you heard, banjo - also played by Jimmy. I love how it starts slow with the guitar adding a bright, "twinkling" sound at the beginning. It speeds up as more people arrive and more instruments get added before the gruesome culmination of the execution even after the hangman was bribed with money and sex. When the lyrics sing "Now I laugh and pull so hard to see you swinging from the gallows pole", the band starts singing "A ha ha ha" to add a further touch of macabre - I love it. It reminds me of the Beatles' macabre Maxwell's Silver Hammer about a hammer-wielding madman killing people.

[@philtred21]

This is based on an old blues song called "Gallis Pole," which was popularized by Leadbelly. The song is considered "traditional," meaning the author is unknown. The lyrics are about a man trying to delay his hanging until his friends and family can rescue him.

[@JoeandAngie]

Old English Caucasian tune

[@daveheesen9174]

way back in the 80s I was watching a movie from the 30s (I think) might have been "Hunchback of Notre Dame"...street woman was singing this song...so cool

[@Rowenband]

Led Belly was one of the main Delta Blues singer from the 30', 40', as much as I remeber, great voice, superb guitar playing, the roots of blues with Robert Johnson.

[@bryanhale5254]

Ledbetter was a man who was in Prison and he entertained the Warden with his songs he was the one who came up with the Midnight Special

[@noelnewlon]

I've liked this song since its publication on the album. Seen a few reactions. Thanks for being the first to take the time to properly interpret it.

[@nancymjohnson]

This is an old swamp blues song. Plant did this with his Swampband in concert in ‘19. Awe-mazing

[@juliemanarin4127]

They did EVERYTHING!! JPJ on that bajo!

[@jeffjohnson9911]

I first heard this song on an album by the Kingston Trio from 1961 under the title Hangman.

[@delorangeade]

The English folk rock movement had begun just a year or two before this, guitar players like Bert Jansch and Richard Thompson were advancing the instrument, and Page and Plant were picking up on those influences, which is how Sandy Denny of Fairport Convention came to be involved with Led Zeppelin's next album.

[@sav888]

Im sooo relieved that you enjoyed this song because if not,,you might have swerved others to not give the might hammer of the gods a good lidten,,thank you friend

[@miconis123]

The hangman is pure evil..he got gold, silver, and even nookie, but still hangs him.

[@jmpsthrufyre]

My fav Zep album Out of the tiles riff is killer

[@robbob5302]

Yes. Led Zeppelin started the 70s, before everybody else did!

[@gold98gtp]

Actually first two albums in 1969, this was the third released in 1970.

[@robbob5302]

@@gold98gtp Exactly my point. LZ kicked off the 70s, in 1969. I guess they couldn’t wait.

[@susanpalmer8931]

Jimmy Page on banjo - only LZ track with this instrument. Thanks for the reaction ☮

[@timothyharrington5128]

That's a revelation. I thought on this album zep wasn't interpreting an American blues singer. I assumed it was a British folktale. But It is European. I wonder how ledbelly picked up on it......jack I like your review style

[@boki1693]

lead belly is an old blues singer. All this time, I thought the hangman hung his sister. LOL

[@tinalinge2782]

The increase in tempo shows the urgency of his requests.

[@angry408w7]

Robert Plant wasn’t even scratching the surface.

[@ChelseaAllen420]

In 8th grade I wrote a paper dissecting this song 🎶

[@redpine8665]

Leadbelly was an bluesman. LZ were influenced very heavily by the blues songs from the Mississippi Delta in their early years. As were The Rolling Stones and others.

[@MontanaFree]

Blew out a car speaker on this one.

[@halslusher6030]

She is riding on the Hangmans POLE get it

[@eddiepotemri1621]

I think this is yet another time that the lyrics of this song are misheard or misinterpreted. Yes, the story starts as a re-telling of the hangman folk song, but at the end Plant's lyrics become very tongue-in-cheek as the hangman is no longer talking about the actual gallows pole... he's saying SHE'S (the sister) swinging on my gallows pole. You can hear these lyrics much more clearly in Plant's live performances... So the end of the song becomes the hangman's celebration because he's got gold, silver,, and the sister swinging on his "pole" (wink wink).

[@punky1534]

Can confirm😂

[@davescurry69]

Isn't it the protagonist now swinging on the gallows pole? The hangman is talking to the condemned man about seeing him swinging on the gallows pole.

[@jimmyboredom3519]

​@davescurry69 right. The hangman pulled the lever anyway after all that

[@davescurry69]

@@jimmyboredom3519 Indeed.

[@heliotropezzz333]

Wrong. The hangman at the end says he laughs so hard, see YOU swinging on the gallows pole. In other words the hangman is talking to the victim. He took the bribes from the man's brother and sister but hung the man anyway

[@jgsrhythm100]

Original very Leadbelly 1939

[@sav888]

and by lidten,,i meant listening

[@ogmandog]

Well awerite.......

[@scottlindsay841]

Take a leap into the Led Zeppelin Rabbit Hole .. So much to explore..

[@alexshkoditch4593]

There is disagreement about the final line of the song. Some people (me included) hear that line as "...I pull so hard, SHE'S swinging on the Gallows Pole". Makes more sense to me. Otherwise, the entire song is being sung by a dead man.

[@stevenduffy599]

A punk musician isn't that an oxymoron

[@thomasdurrschmidt4808]

They borrowed that song ...lol

[@davidberesford7009]

It is not a nice song, but a good'un