Structure
The song begins on beat 4, bending the minor 7th (G) up to the root (A), kicking off an aggressive riff constructed around the blues scale, followed by a powerful power chord assault during the verse from not only the guitar but the bass playing power chords also. Robert Plant sings about a woman named Annie, who is up to her old tricks again; the lyrics recall a tale of a man painfully wizened after their encounters.
Following a straight 8ths "rave up" by the band, Page's solo fires off a rapid-fire chain of sextuplet hammer-ons and pull-offs, accented by the guitarist bending the G String behind the guitar's nut. Page plays a few bluesy licks before launching into a "wall of notes" motif in A, finally, bringing it to an end with a blues cliché "goodbye chord." The rest of the band joins Page for another improvisation as an interlude into the final verse.
In an interview Page gave to Guitar World magazine in 1998, Page stated that:
he interesting thing about the solo is that it was recorded after we had already finished "Heartbreaker" - it was an afterthought. That whole section was recorded in a different studio and it was sort of slotted in the middle. If you notice, the whole sound of the guitar is different.Page also disclosed to Guitar World that this song in general, and the a cappella solo in particular, was the first recorded instance of his famous Gibson Les Paul/Marshall Stack combination.
When "Heartbreaker" is played on radio stations, it almost always segues into the next song on the album, "Living Loving Maid (She's Just a Woman)", thanks to the similarities of subjects involved between the two songs, and the fact that "Living Loving Maid" segues directly from "Heartbreaker".
Read more about this topic: Heartbreaker (Led Zeppelin Song)
Famous quotes containing the word structure:
“What is the structure of government that will best guard against the precipitate counsels and factious combinations for unjust purposes, without a sacrifice of the fundamental principle of republicanism?”
—James Madison (1751–1836)
“Why does philosophy use concepts and why does faith use symbols if both try to express the same ultimate? The answer, of course, is that the relation to the ultimate is not the same in each case. The philosophical relation is in principle a detached description of the basic structure in which the ultimate manifests itself. The relation of faith is in principle an involved expression of concern about the meaning of the ultimate for the faithful.”
—Paul Tillich (1886–1965)
“Science is intimately integrated with the whole social structure and cultural tradition. They mutually support one other—only in certain types of society can science flourish, and conversely without a continuous and healthy development and application of science such a society cannot function properly.”
—Talcott Parsons (1902–1979)