"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
Famous quotes containing the words happenings, ten, years and/or time:
“It seems to me that we do not know nearly enough about ourselves; that we do not often enough wonder if our lives, or some events and times in our lives, may not be analogues or metaphors or echoes of evolvements and happenings going on in other people?—or animals?—even forests or oceans or rocks?—in this world of ours or, even, in worlds or dimensions elsewhere.”
—Doris Lessing (b. 1919)
“It costs more to maintain ten vices than one virtue.”
—H.L. (Henry Lewis)
“Furnished as all Europe now is with Academies of Science, with nice instruments and the spirit of experiment, the progress of human knowledge will be rapid and discoveries made of which we have at present no conception. I begin to be almost sorry I was born so soon, since I cannot have the happiness of knowing what will be known a hundred years hence.”
—Benjamin Franklin (1706–1790)
“The nearer people approach old age the closer they return to a semblance of childhood, until the time comes for them to depart this life, again like children, neither tired of living nor aware of death.”
—Desiderius Erasmus (c. 1466–1536)