Album Version
At eight and a half minutes, "How Many More Times" is the longest song on the album. It consists of several smaller sections held together by a bolero rhythm that pushes the piece along. At the end, the song pans between the left and right channels. Elements of this song are faintly reminiscent of previously-recorded instrumental "Beck's Bolero" by Jeff Beck, on which Jimmy Page had played guitar and John Paul Jones bass guitar. This was one of three Led Zeppelin songs on which Page used bowed guitar, the others being "Dazed and Confused" and "In the Light".
Led Zeppelin members Jimmy Page, John Paul Jones and John Bonham were credited with writing this song. Howlin' Wolf, the late Chester Burnett, had recorded a song called "How Many More Years" in 1951, and all new Led Zeppelin releases since 1993 have co-credited the song to the Burnett via arrangement with his publishing company, ARC Music. Cover versions by many artists, such as the LA Guns 1999 version on the album Shrinking Violet, however, are not credited to Burnett.
As with all the other tracks on Led Zeppelin's debut album, Robert Plant didn't get a writing credit for this song due to unexpired contractual obligations.
Though listed at a time of 3:30 on the album sleeve, the correct length of the track is in fact 8:28. The incorrect listing was deliberate as it was intended to help promote radio play. Page knew that radio stations would never play a song over eight minutes long, so he wrote the track time as shorter on the album to trick radio stations into playing it.
In an interview he gave to Guitar World magazine in 1993, Page stated that the song "was made up of little pieces I developed when I was with the Yardbirds, as were other numbers such as "Dazed and Confused". It was played live in the studio with cues and nods."
It has also been reported that the "Rosie" and "Hunter" components of the song came spontaneously to the group on the night of the recording session. The "Hunter" component is taken from "The Hunter" recorded by bluesman Albert King with Booker T & the MGs.
Read more about this topic: How Many More Times
Famous quotes containing the words album and/or version:
“What a long strange trip it’s been.”
—Robert Hunter, U.S. rock lyricist. “Truckin’,” on the Grateful Dead album American Beauty (1971)
“Truth cannot be defined or tested by agreement with ‘the world’; for not only do truths differ for different worlds but the nature of agreement between a world apart from it is notoriously nebulous. Rather—speaking loosely and without trying to answer either Pilate’s question or Tarski’s—a version is to be taken to be true when it offends no unyielding beliefs and none of its own precepts.”
—Nelson Goodman (b. 1906)