Whole Lotta Love
by Led Zeppelin
- 178
- BPM
- E minor
- Key
- 9A
- Camelot
- 42
- Danceability
- 5
- Acousticness
In the summer of 1968, Jimmy Page was on his houseboat on the River Thames at Pangbourne, Berkshire, when he came up with the guitar riff for Led Zeppelin's "Whole Lotta Love". John Paul Jones said it probably grew out of live improvisation during Yardbirds performances of "Dazed and Confused", but Page denied that. The chugging riff sounds like twin guitars because Page played two strings in unison while bending one of them. Jones used the same technique on bass, doubling the part an octave lower.
While mixing Led Zeppelin II over two days, engineer Eddie Kramer heard what he took to be tape bleedthrough on Plant's vocals. It could not be removed. He added echo instead, and Page liked the sound. Page also used a backwards echo technique.
Parts of the lyrics were adapted from "You Need Love" by Willie Dixon, recorded by Muddy Waters in 1962. Dixon was not credited at first. A 1985 lawsuit ended with a payment to him and credit on later releases. The song opens the album and came out as a single in 1969 in several countries, though not in the United Kingdom. In the United States it became the band's first hit and went gold.
Whole Lotta Love runs at 178 BPM, the tempo of drum and bass and jungle. In classical terms it sits in presto territory. A bar of 4/4 lasts 1.35 seconds, and a quarter-note delay is 337 ms. It is in E minor, Camelot 9A, which shares its notes with G major and mixes cleanly with A minor and B minor.
We use multiple sources as part of our online research for the song story including Wikipedia.