While several rock and roll musicians experimented with Indian mysticism and Eastern religion in the 1960's, perhaps most notably the Beatles, the music that resulted from these dabblings usually tended toward the psychedelic, or sitar-oriented spectrum of things. It was unusual to see bands importing Indian influences that were not mellow or which did not conform to the stereotypical sound that had become associated with the phenomenon.Led Zeppelin were far from a typical band, and when Robert Plant had to drive through the Sahara Desert in 1973, he was inspired to compose lyrics about what he felt was an endless journey beneath a wide open, star-filled sky. The band had a broader understanding of music from the Middle Eastern quarter of the world, and they wanted to involve elements from several different cultures while recording the track - not just from India.
For Led Zeppelin Kashmir was the first time they had ever used studio musicians while recording a song. While John Paul Jones was comfortable laying down the basic synth tracks, he wanted to give the song a more full feeling that would accurately convey the grandeur of what was shaping up to be another epic performance. An orchestra was used to record string and brass parts. The song ended up being eight and a half minutes long, but by now the band no longer feared being ignored by radio, as album-oriented rock stations routinely played their longer cuts. Other bands had followed suit, and two of the longest tracks in classic rock, 'Stairway to Heaven' and 'Freebird' by Lynyrd Skynyrd routinely dueled for supremacy on the airwaves.
Kashmir set a new standard for what hard rock bands could accomplish musically. The song is a sweeping, lush production, and the high strings contrast against the driving 3 / 4 time of John Bonham's just-behind the beat drumming. Jimmy Page claims that the musical backbone of the song came from a guitar-cycle he had been recording at home over a period of years, and that input from Bonham in terms of the track's timing and drum pattern were the missing piece that completed it.
There is no doubt that for Led Zeppelin Kashmir was a tour de force, and one that lead previously disparaging rock critics to take notice of a band that was able to marshal up such an impressive effort. The group was maturing, and they still had several albums of self-expression left inside of them.
