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:
“... the structure of our public morality crashed to earth. Above its grave a tombstone read, “Be tolerant—even of evil.” Logically the next step would be to say to our commonwealth’s criminals, “I disagree that it’s all right to rob and murder, but naturally I respect your opinion.” Tolerance is only complacence when it makes no distinction between right and wrong.”
—Sarah Patton Boyle, U.S. civil rights activist and author. The Desegregated Heart, part 2, ch. 2 (1962)
“... the structure of a page of good prose is, analyzed logically, not something frozen but the vibrating of a bridge, which changes with every step one takes on it.”
—Robert Musil (1880–1942)
“A committee is organic rather than mechanical in its nature: it is not a structure but a plant. It takes root and grows, it flowers, wilts, and dies, scattering the seed from which other committees will bloom in their turn.”
—C. Northcote Parkinson (1909–1993)