Background
The album was named by the group to describe its recent struggles amidst the death of Robert Plant's son Karac in 1977, and the taxation exile the band took from the UK. The exile resulted in the band being unable to tour on British soil for over two years, and trying to get back into the public mind was therefore like "trying to get in through the 'out' door."
In contrast to previous Led Zeppelin albums, In Through the Out Door features much greater influence on the part of bassist and keyboardist John Paul Jones and vocalist Robert Plant, and relatively less from drummer John Bonham and guitarist Jimmy Page. Two songs from the album—"South Bound Saurez" and "All My Love"—were the only two original Led Zeppelin songs that Jimmy Page had no part in writing. With the exception of "Darlene," a boogie-woogie based song credited to all band members (which was eventually released on the 1982 album, Coda), Bonham did not receive writing credits for any of the songs recorded at Polar Studios. This diminished input by Page and Bonham is attributed to the two band members often not showing up on time at the recording studio, with Bonham struggling with alcoholism and Page battling heroin addiction. As Jones said, "there were two distinct camps by then, and we were in the relatively clean one."
Many of the songs were consequently put together by Plant and Jones during the day, with Page and Bonham adding their parts late at night. According to Jones, this was
mainly because I had a new toy. I had this big new keyboard. And Robert and I just got to rehearsals early, basically... So Robert and I, by the time everybody turned up for rehearsals, we’d written three or four songs. So we started rehearsing those immediately, because they were something to be getting on with.
Following the recording sessions at Polar Studios, the album was mixed at Page's personal studio at his home in Plumpton. "Wearing and Tearing", "Ozone Baby" and "Darlene" were recorded during sessions for this album, but were dropped because of space constraints. All later appeared on Coda.
Read more about this topic: In Through The Out Door
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