This is my dog.
His name is Robert Plant.
…
Believe me?
…
If you don't comment, I'll take his rock-muzzle off…..
Okay dickhead, I ain't fucking Rolling Stone. I will not ignore the greatest band to ever walk the bowels of hell.* I will never admit that JaRule produces "music." I will never consent to the idea of Christina Aguilera living…let alone plastering her greasy slut-face anywhere but the bathroom of a Buffalo Wild Wings.
*edit: So they ranked Black Dog #294 on their list of greatest 500 rock and roll songs of all time. Whatever. It's at least #152.
Led Zeppelin is by far my favorite classic rock band, so I should have no trouble shitting on them as I have already shat upon AC/DC and ZZ Top. It may be more difficult this time, given the fact that I don't have an acroynm to work with…but fuck, it isn't Stairway. I don't have to do a dissertation on it.
Roof, roof.
Led Zeppelin, "Black Dog"
With a lick tastier than a Red Lobster garlic-cheddar biscuit, Jimmy Page propells this song like a kamikaze pilot slamming his gnarly plane into the U.S.S. Facemelter (may it rest in peace).
Though John Paul Jones, the band's bassist, is credited with writing the original notes to the song, he's the bassist and who gives a fuck about him?
Something should be said that this song's riff is actually based on another band's–Howlin' Wolfs'–style and for that we should all be grateful. But, as the old saying goes, "It is smart to borrow; it is genius to steal…and then make millions and millions of unearned dollars."
Despite this STEALING, the title of "Black Dog" is actually not an allusion to this band, ironically enough. It is what lead singer Robert Plant called his favorite female house slave.
Just kidding.
Though it is rare for a song to start with a riff and then develop sufficient lyrics, Robert Plant found it quite easy to fill each wet, slimy word-hole with hard, hairy, sweaty pumping, sexual inneundos like "Gonna make you burn, gonna make you sting" and "Watch your honey drip, can't keep away."
So how do he do this?
By watching cartoons.
Cartoons! Yes! Looney Tunes bullshit cartoons.
The title of the song is actually from an old Warner Brothers skit that goes something like this…
(A talent agent, a guy and a black dog are sitting in an office, the TA at his desk and the dog and guy at chairs opposite him)
Talent Agent: So I hear you got a talking dog on your hands, eh?
Guy: I tell ya this dog can talk!
Talent Agent: (Unimpressed) Let's see it…
Guy: (to black dog) Alright boy. What's on top of a house?
Black dog: Roof!
Talent Agent: HEEYYYYY NOW. That's not talking.
Guy: (to black dog) Well then boy…answer me this! Who is the greatest baseball player of all time?
Black Dog: Ruth!
Talent Agent: (Irate) Get the hell out of my office!
(Guy and Dog leave the office)
Guy: (chagrin) Well?
Black Dog: (slyly) I guess I should've said Dimaggio!
Whoa! Hahahaha.
Seriously, that has rock and roll written all over it.
And Plant agreed. He immediately grabbed a pen and paper and began watching other cartoons all day… Yogi the Bear ("watch your honey drip, can't keep away"), Betty Boop ("big legged woman ain't got no soul"), Quickdraw McGraw ("Oh yeah, oh yeah, oh oh oh").
So, in fact, when the boys of Led Zeppelin got together and wrote "Black Dog," they weren't thinking of the brick o' rock chomping hellhound you saw at the beginning of this post…they didn't have to sell their souls to the devil. They only had to sell their souls to the overproduced, brightly-colored, soul-eating conglomeration that is capitalism. Or, as they are known by most cereal-eating 8-year-olds…Saturday morning cartoons!
(It also helped they were keeping to their strict regimen of "LOTS AND LOTS OF LSD.")
Who knows? If they had seen the cartoons of today…such as Doug, Rugrats or Dora the Explorer, we might have totally different lyrics to one of our most cherished anthems… (lyrics like "Watch your swiper swipe, can't swipe today" or "I'm a pussy who wears an olive sweater and loves flat-chested Patty Mayonnaise").
And instead of Led Zeppelin, we'd all be listening to The Beets' "I need more allowance."
And that's a reference we can all* air-guitar to.
*Restrictions apply. The word "all" encompasses only 20-23 year olds of White, middle-income, blue-collar backgrounds, who were as totally lame as I was….
Well…as I am.
(Yo-dell-eh-e-ew)