Led Zeppelin – "Good Times Bad Times" (1969)

It only took a couple of days 

'Til she was rid of me

(I hear you, Robert Plant – the same thing’s happened to me . . . more than once, I might add.)

“Good Times Bad Times” is the opening track on Led Zeppelin’s eponymous debut album, so it’s the first Led Zeppelin song most of us heard.

Believe it or not, Rolling Stone magazine originally panned that album.  Years later, they saw the error of their ways and gave it their highest rating – “Hard rock would never be the same” after Led Zeppelin I, according to the magazine’s 2001 reassessment of that album.

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“Good Times Bad Times” is the fourth song from that album to be named to the 2 OR 3 LINES “GOLDEN DECADE” ALBUM TRACKS HALL OF FAME in as many years.  That’s no accident – and it’s certainly no mistake.

I can’t imagine how “Good Times Bad Times” could have been improved – Robert Plant’s vocals are great, John Paul Jones’s bass guitar is great, Jimmy Page’s lead guitar (which was fed through a Leslie speaker) is great, and John Bonham’s drumming is especially great.

The record was released as a single, and it did appear briefly on the Billboard “Hot 100” singles chart, peaking at #80 the week of April 19, 1969.  

The records that were in the top forty that week included “Dizzy” by Tommy Roe, “Hair” by the Cowsills, “Sweet Cherry Wine” by Tommy James, “Gimme Gimme Good Lovin’” by Crazy Elephant, and “Indian Giver” by the 1910 Fruitgum Company.  I’ve got nothing against any of those records, but can you imagine hearing “Good Times Bad Times” followed by “Dizzy” or “Indian Giver” on an AM radio station?  

The effect would be akin to seeing Raquel Welch or Ursula Andress at your high school prom – there were some really cute girls in my high school class, but they all would have been completely overshadowed if someone like Ms. Welch or Ms. Andress had shown up. 

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“Good Times Bad Times” – which is a very tight record – clocks in at 2:43.  Every other member of this year’s group of 2 OR 3 LINES “GOLDEN DECADE” ALBUM TRACKS HALL OF FAME inductees will be considerably longer and less focused.

Many of the longer album cuts from the “Golden Decade” of rock music are padded with long instrumental solos and other filler.  But while this year’s hall of fame album tracks take their time getting to the end, they never strike the listener as being too long.  If anything, they’re too short – they may be six or seven minutes long, but you’re still sorry to see them end. 

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Click here to listen to “Good Times Bad Times.”

Click on the link below to buy the song from Amazon: