"Happenings Ten Years Time Ago" was the first single by the British rock band The Yardbirds to feature future Led Zeppelin guitarist Jimmy Page in the band. Page had recently replaced the original bassist for The Yardbirds, Paul Samwell-Smith. "Happenings Ten Years Time Ago" was also the first of three recordings pairing Page with incumbent lead guitarist Jeff Beck. John Paul Jones played session bass on the song, he would later play on the song "Beck's Bolero" with both Beck and Page; Jones would eventually join Led Zeppelin with Page.
The single reached #30 on Billboard in the U.S. and #43 in the UK charts.
The U.S. picture sleeve, featuring Beck and Page in the photo, only coincides with the A-side of the U.S. single. Its B-side, "The Nazz Are Blue", features the pre-Page lineup with Paul Samwell-Smith, as well as a rare lead vocal by Beck. The UK single's B-side "Psycho Daisies" also features vocals by Beck.
There had been several errors previously made in the U.S. distribution of Yardbirds material, most notably the picture sleeves for the "I Wish You Would" and "Heart Full Of Soul" singles. Three further mistakes were made with this release:
- The A-side label of the U.S. single features Samwell-Smith in the writer's credits instead of Page
- Chris Dreja and Jim McCarty's surnames are misspelled as "Drega" and "McCarthy"
- The same photo erroneously used for "Heart Full Of Soul" picture sleeve (featuring Eric Clapton) was printed on the front of the "Happenings Ten Years Time Ago" sheet music.
"Happenings Ten Years Time Ago" appears as number 3 in Record Collector’s "100 Greatest Psychedelic Records", a list in chronological order.
This song was covered by Todd Rundgren in 1976 on his album Faithful and by John Corabi and Mick Mars in 1996 on Jeffology: A Guitar Chronicle, a tribute to Jeff Beck.
Read more about Happenings Ten Years Time Ago: Personnel
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