Led Zep live in Oz 1973

IV is forty years old today. The first rock album I ever bought, and the soundtrack to many nights. So much of my past is wedded to it, I can't imagine life without it. Which may sound sad, in a way, but you make do with what you have at hand. For a few years, that meant avocado shag rug, wood paneling, backlights, bongs and the reveries that the music would induce. Everything from Viking conquest to Middle Earth to willowy girls with flowers in their hair. Led Zeppelin ceased to be cool or even admissible, but even in my punkiest stages, I couldn't bring myself to abandon the band.

Forty years. Christ.