Celebration Day

"Celebration Day" is a song by English rock band Led Zeppelin, and the third track from their 1970 album Led Zeppelin III. The band's last concert film and album, released on 19 November 2012, took their name from this song. Composition and recording The song starts with guitar chords played over a monotonic drone created by a synthesiser. This connects the song musically with the preceding track on the album, "Friends", which ends with the same drone. Originally, one of John Bonham's drum tracks was to be used in the intro of "Celebration Day", but an engineer accidentally erased the recording. Unable or unwilling to re-record it, they used the synthesizer drone from the end of "Friends" to fill up the gap. The recording took place at Headley Grange, England, with the Rolling Stones' mobile recording studio. Robert Plant's lyrics were inspired by his initial impressions of New York City. On Zeppelin's 1971 concert tour of the United States, he would sometimes introduce it as "The New York Song". "Celebration Day" was often played live in Led Zeppelin concerts from 1971 to 1973, and was returned to the band's setlist at the Knebworth Festival in 1979, where Page performed the song using his Gibson EDS-1275 double-necked guitar. Record producer Rick Rubin has said of the song: "["Celebration Day"] feels like a freight train, even though it's not one of their heavier songs. There's tremendous momentum in the way they play together. The bass playing is beyond incredible and the guitars interact really well—there's a heavy-riffing guitar, which is answered by a funky guitar."