Part two of Scott Shea’s article on Jake Holmes picks up with “Dazed and Confused.” In 1967, Jake Holmes cut the song on his debut LP, built around that now-iconic, ominous descending bassline and a lyric mood as stark as a Greenwich Village winter. A year later it was in the Yardbirds’ set; by January 1969 it was on Led Zeppelin’s first album, credited solely to Jimmy Page. What followed was decades of silence, a politely worded letter from Holmes in the early ’80s, a bruising public grilling in 1990, and, eventually, a 2010 lawsuit that ended in a confidential settlement and a coy “inspired by” tag on later releases. The dispute has flared again with claims about how the 2025 documentary Becoming Led Zeppelin handles the song’s origins. Shea looks closely at how Holmes’s composition travelled, club to stage to stadium, and asks what credit and influence mean when a subterranean folk tune becomes a generational rock rite.
Never Bargained for You
The descending bass line that introduces Led Zeppelin’s 1969 album track “Dazed and Confused” is one of the most identifiable in all of rock and roll, and, in a catalog full of signature songs, it’s arguably their biggest. Approximately two weeks before the Four Seasons released “The Genuine Imitation Life Gazette,” Led Zeppelin’s debut LP was issued on Atlantic Records. It had the opposite effect of the Seasons’ album, captivating young listeners as the British group, comprised of Robert Plant on lead vocals, Jimmy Page on guitar, John Paul Jones on bass and John Bonham on drums, blazed a promotional trail from San Francisco to New York and getting the exposure Philips Records had desired from the college crowd and FM album rock stations. It seems that nearly everybody was getting on board the Led Zeppelin train, and “Dazed and Confused” became a live highlight, with the 6:27 song often getting stretched into 15-20-minute jams on stage. Anyone flipping over the record to look at songwriting credits would see that “Dazed and Confused” was written by guitarist Jimmy Page. Few of them knew that its signature descending bass line, opening lyric and overall psychedelic moodiness were the brainchild of Jake Holmes, and the song had first appeared on his debut LP, “The ‘Above Ground Sound’ of Jake Holmes” back in 1967.
A big part of Led Zeppelin’s uniqueness was its mixture of musical sophistication and soulful grittiness personified by the band members themselves. Robert Plant and John Bonham came to Led Zeppelin from the English countryside, where they dazzled locals with gritty, soulful live performances, but had little studio experience. Jimmy Page and John Paul Jones were veteran session musicians by 1969 and appeared on songs as diverse as Them’s “Here Comes the Night,” Donovan’s “Sunshine Superman” and Shirley Bassey’s “Goldfinger.” In 1966, Jimmy Page was invited to join the heavily blues-influenced pop band, the Yardbirds, as a replacement for bassist Paul Samwell-Smith who left to pursue a career as a record producer. When guitarist Jeff Beck fell ill while on tour in the U.S., Jimmy took over his spot for its remainder and Chris Dreja moved to bass. After Beck’s recuperation, the Yardbirds had the great fortune of possessing one of the most incredible co-lead guitar duos in the history of rock and roll, but it didn’t last very long. Beck quit in late 1966, and Page became the sole lead guitarist.
On August 25, 1967, the Yardbirds headlined a concert at the Village Theater in Greenwich Village with the Youngbloods and Jake Holmes serving as opening acts. Yardbirds drummer Jim McCarty was the only member of the group who attended Jake’s show, and he was particularly taken by his performance of “Dazed and Confused.” He purchased the album the next day and played the track for the rest of the band. All liked it well enough to craft a full-band arrangement to incorporate it into their live repertoire. Jimmy Page created a lead guitar riff for it that broke into an incredible solo, using a violin bow to vibrate the strings and provide a sustained, distorted tone that lent to its heavy psychedelic nature. The Yardbirds never recorded it, but they played it live dozens of times using Jake’s original lyrics before breaking up in July 1968. Page was able to retain the band name and went about putting a new version together, eventually settling on Plant, Bonham and Jones.
One of the first songs they worked on was “Dazed and Confused.” The powerful rhythm section gave it muscle, and Jimmy Page wrote new lyrics for it with seeming disregard for its original. But even with all the musical accouterments provided by Led Zeppelin, it was that menacing, descending bass line that drew listeners in and should’ve been enough to merit a co-writer credit for Jake Holmes, not to mention giving the song its title. After Led Zeppelin’s debut album peaked at #10 in the U.S., Jake became aware of the improper credit, but shrugged it off. Perhaps he had reminiscences of Tim Rose and “Hey Joe.” He had no way of knowing that “Dazed and Confused” would go on to become a bona fide classic and a rite of passage for many teenagers for decades. Led Zeppelin’s debut album would eventually sell over 10 million copies in the U.S. alone and be certified 8X Platinum by the RIAA. In the early 1980s, not long after Led Zeppelin had broken up, Jake sent a letter to their attention, humbly asking for at least a co-writer credit.
“I understand it’s a collaborative effort,” he wrote. “But I think you should give me some credit at least and some remunity (sic).”
It went unanswered. In November 1990, Musician Magazine published an interview with Jimmy Page conducted by Matt Resnicoff, who directly asked about Jake Holmes’ original. It was the first time he’d been confronted publicly about it, and he responded like a petty thief in a police interrogation.
“I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know about all that,” Page responded sourly.
Resnicoff pressed further.
“But Jake Holmes, a successful jingle writer in New York, claims on his 1967 record that he wrote the original song,” he stated.
“Hmm. Well, I don’t know about that,” Page responded. “I’d rather not get into it because I don’t know all the circumstances.”
Page didn’t come off well, especially considering that same year, rug weaver and former folk singer Anne Bredon successfully sued him for not properly crediting her original song, “Babe, I’m Gonna Leave You,” which also appeared on Led Zeppelin’s debut album. Word started getting around that Jimmy Page was a song stealer, and his reputation began taking a hit. Upon further inspection, Led Zeppelin and music fans saw eerie similarities in other songs like “Black Mountainside,” which sounded a lot like Bert Jansch’s “Black Water Side” from 1966, “Whole Lotta Love,” which was pretty much an amped up version of Muddy Waters’ “You Need Love,” and even the introduction to their magnum opus, “Stairway to Heaven,” bears an uncanny resemblance to Los Angeles rock band Spirit’s 1968 instrumental, “Taurus.”
In 2010, Jake got much more serious and sued Page for copyright infringement, and they eventually settled out of court. The terms have never been released, but subsequent releases list Jake Holmes as the song’s “inspiration,” which still doesn’t seem to cover it. But it didn’t end there. Earlier this year, Jake once again filed a lawsuit against Page and Sony for violating the terms of the 2011 agreement by not properly crediting him in their 2025 documentary, “Becoming Led Zeppelin.” The detailed, two-hour account doesn’t even broach the origins of the song. There’s no denying that Jimmy Page and the rest of Led Zeppelin put a lot of meat on the bones of those songs, which lifted them to iconic status for multiple generations, but, in the case of “Dazed and Confused,” Page’s stubbornness made him look like a bad guy and Jake look like a victim. In the end, it all seemed to work out. Jake got a direct tie to one of the most popular bands in rock history and regularly gets introduced to a whole new legion of fans.
Be All You That You Can Be
The saga of “Dazed and Confused” wasn’t the end of Jake Holmes’ story. He released two albums on Polydor and one for Columbia in 1971 before turning to commercial advertising full-time with HEA Productions. You may have even heard a few of his jingles: “Be All the You Can Be” for the U.S. Army, “Raise Your Hand if You’re Sure” for Sure Deodorant and “Be a Pepper” for Dr. Pepper. In 1989, he ventured back into the pop music world by co-writing eight songs for Harry Belafonte’s album, “Belafonte ’89.”
In a 2001 interview with Will Shade, Jake told him that when he first got into the music industry, he wanted to be the Cole Porter of folk music. That didn’t necessarily work out for his pop records, but in the world of commercial jingles, he’s “c’est magnifique.” His ditties are some of the most recognizable in commercial history, and in that world of 30-second to one-minute jingles with quick hooks and memorable catch phrases, even Johnny Mercer and Brian Wilson would have a tough time keeping up. Jake Holmes’ story is one that often slips under the radar, but it’s a fascinating one of talent, determination, collaboration, and being in the right place at the right time. Jake Holmes influenced two great artists directly, and even though his efforts may not have been accepted in the moment, they’ve been reanalyzed and appreciated for decades now. And without him, Led Zeppelin wouldn’t have one of its most beloved songs. Many musicians out there would’ve killed for that resume or had the chance to write songs for the Four Seasons, Frank Sinatra and Led Zeppelin.
Further information
Part 1 of Scott Shea’s article on Jake Holmes is available here
