Gloomy Tunes: Led Zeppelin, "Gallows Pole"

We told you in Dead of the Day that today is the anniversary of Ferdinand von Zeppelin’s death…you think we were going to just let it go by with a joke?

Nope, here’s Jimmy Page, Robert Plant, John Paul Jones, and the irreplaceable John Bohnam, with “Gallows Pole,” from Led Zeppelin III, a controversial record that found them indulging their folkish, acoustic side. I liked it, enough that I got into a fistfight waiting for the school bus when someone told me they hated it. (And they wonder why I became a music critic….)

Steven Mirkin

Steven Mirkin’s diverse career has taken him from politics to pop culture to high art, offering him a front row seat to some of the most fascinating events and personalities of our time: writing speeches, fundraising appeals and campaign materials for Ed Koch, John Heinz and independent presidential candidate John B. Anderson; chronicling the punk/new wave scenes in New York and London; interviewing musicians such as Elton John, John Lydon and Buck Owens; profiling modern masters Julian Schnabel, Paul Schrader and Jonathan Safran Foer; and writing for TV shows including 21, The Chamber, Let's Make A Deal, and Rock Star: INXS.