Dazed and Confused (Jake Holmes song)

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"Dazed and Confused" is a song written by American singer-songwriter Jake Holmes in 1967. Performed in a folk rock-style, he recorded it for his debut album "The Above Ground Sound" of Jake Holmes. Although some concluded that it was about a bad acid trip, Holmes insists the lyrics refer to the effects of a girl's indecision on ending a relationship.

After hearing Holmes perform the song in August 1967, English rock group the Yardbirds reworked it with a new arrangement. It soon became a centerpiece of their tours, several recordings of which have been released, including on Yardbirds '68, produced by guitarist Jimmy Page.

In 1968 "Dazed and Confused", with new lyrics and vocal line, was recorded by Page's new group Led Zeppelin and released on their debut album. It became a signature song and concert staple for much of the group's career. Holmes attempted to contact Page in the 1980s regarding the songwriting credit, but received no response.

Starting in 2010,<ref>Led Zeppelin sued by folk singer for alleged plagiarism. New York Post. Retrieved July 6, 2010.</ref> Jake Holmes filed multiple lawsuits against Page for copyright infringement regarding "Dazed and Confused." In August 2025, the case was settled out of court, with both sides informing the California court they had reached a written settlement. The terms and details of the agreement remain confidential, but the settlement resolves the entire matter.<ref name=lawsuit> Jake Holmes and Led Zeppelin’s Jimmy Page reach settlement in ‘Dazed and Confused’ copyright dispute Music Business Worldwide, August 3, 2025</ref>

Background and composition

Jake Holmes began his music career in the early 1960s, and recorded and performed with several different groups.Template:Sfn He was influenced by psychedelic rock and groups such as the Byrds and the Blues Project, and wrote "Dazed and Confused" in a similar style with a blues influence.<ref name="Classic">Template:Cite web</ref> In earlyTemplate:Nbsp1967, he recorded the song for his debut solo album "The Above Ground Sound" of Jake Holmes, as a trio of acoustic guitar, electric guitar, and bass.<ref name="Unterberger album" /> On July 10, it was released on the Tower Records label.Template:Sfn

The arrangement is a modular dirge in the key of E minor<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> built on a descending chromatic bass line alternating between the 3rd (E-G-F#-F-E) and the 7th (E-D-C#-C-B).<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Holmes' singing has been described as "pained",<ref name="Unterberger album"/> and the lyrics ("you're out to get me/you're on the right track") and ("I'm being abused/I'm better off dead"), coupled with the arrangement led some people to think the song was about a bad acid trip.<ref name="Classic" /> However, Holmes said it was a song about a girl.Template:Sfn

In August 1967, Holmes opened for the Yardbirds at a Greenwich Village gig in New York.<ref name="Michaels"/> According to Holmes, "That was the infamous moment of my life when 'Dazed and Confused' fell into the loving arms and hands of Jimmy Page."Template:Sfn He was aware of the song appearing on Led Zeppelin's eponymous debut album less than two years later, but did not take any action at the time. In the early 1980s, he wrote to the group and asked for a co-credit, but received no reply.<ref name="Classic"/>

In June 2010, Holmes sued Led Zeppelin guitarist Jimmy Page for copyright infringement, claiming to be the author of "Dazed and Confused." In court documents, he cited a 1967 copyright registration for the song, which was renewed in 1995.<ref name="Michaels">Template:Cite news</ref> On January 17, 2012, the case was "dismissed with prejudice"Template:Efn after the parties reached an undisclosed settlement out of court.<ref name="Court">Template:Cite web</ref>

The Yardbirds

Background

By late 1966, English rock group the Yardbirds had moved away from recording hit singles towards regular touring. In July 1967, they began their second tour of the US as a quartet, with Jimmy Page as the sole guitarist.Template:Sfn The group performed at more countercultural venues, such as the Fillmore Auditorium in San Francisco.Template:Sfn Their sets became more varied with extended medleysTemplate:Sfn and featured guitar instrumentals by Page, such as "White Summer" and "Glimpses".Template:Sfn

On August 25, 1967, the group headlined at the Village Theater in New York City, with opening acts the Youngbloods and Jake Holmes.Template:Sfn Yardbirds drummer Jim McCarty was the only Yardbird to catch Holmes' performance.Template:SfnTemplate:Efn He liked "Dazed and Confused" and bought the album the next day, subsequently playing it to the rest of the band. They reworked the song, focusing the arrangements based on the descending bass line. Page added additional guitar riffs in the middle of the song.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn

Rearrangement

The Yardbirds began to develop a new arrangement for "Dazed and Confused" while still on tour in the U.S.Template:Sfn Holmes' brooding atmosphere and descending bass line were retained, as well as most of the lyrics.Template:Sfn Page doubled the bass line, echoing Holmes' live performances with two acoustic guitarists.Template:Sfn However, propelled by drums and an overdriven Fender Telecaster,Template:Sfn the song quickly took on a new, distinctly non-folk sound.Template:Sfn

Singer Keith Relf initially followed Holmes' verses, but later often changed the order or mixed lines from different verses.Template:Sfn Led Zeppelin biographer Mick Wall feels that Relf only "slightly altered" the lyrics,Template:Sfn while Page biographer Martin Power credits Relf with "writing new lyrics".Template:Sfn Yardbirds chronicler Greg Russo describes that gradually the song "moved from Holmes' original lyrics to an alternate set of lyrics that combined words from Jake Holmes and Keith Relf."Template:Sfn

The Yardbirds' major alterations were the instrumental breaks and an extended instrumental middle section.Template:Sfn Writer-educator Susan Fast describes the breaks, appearing between the verses and after Page's solo, as "a detail that contributes significantly to the drama of the piece, creating enormous tension at the end of each verse before moving on to the next."Template:Sfn

The song begins with bowed electric guitar phrasings by Page, answered by vocal and harmonica interjections by Relf. Page attributed the idea of using a violin bow on the guitar to a suggestion from violinist David McCallum, Sr., whom he met in his pre-Yardbirds days as a session musician.Template:Sfn The bowed section gives way to Page's riff-laden guitar solo, propelled by a bass ostinato and fast driving 4/4-meter.Template:Sfn The song returns to the slow tempo 12/8 verse structure before the coda.Template:Sfn The Yardbirds' new arrangement, contributed by the four members, soon amounted to a major reworking of Holmes' original piece.Template:Sfn Bassist Chris Dreja later said, "We found it, arranged it and played it. In a way, it was a great epitaph, because we were feeling very dazed and confused about what the hell was going on!"Template:Sfn

Performances

"Dazed and Confused" was a regular part of the Yardbirds' performances during their final tours in 1967 and 1968.Template:SfnTemplate:SfnTemplate:SfnTemplate:Sfn The song debuted during their short US tour in late 1967, which included a date at the Village Theater.Template:Sfn When they returned to England, the group performed a nine-minute version in January 1968, around the time the full quartet recorded their last single, "Think About It".Template:SfnTemplate:Efn On March 5–6, the Yardbirds performed "Dazed and Confused" for BBC Radio.Template:Sfn In his Led Zeppelin biography When Giants Walked the Earth, Wall notes that the relatively concise 5:48 version "sounds almost identical musically to the number Page would take credit for on the first Zeppelin album".Template:Sfn (Led Zeppelin's studio version lasts 6:28.) Another short (5:46) performance was filmed by French television on March 9 for Bouton Rouge.Template:Sfn AllMusic critic Bruce Eder notes it "comes off much better than the officialTemplate:Sic Anderson Theater version from later the same month."<ref name="Cumular">Template:AllMusic</ref>

Template:AnchorOn March 28, 1968, the Yardbirds returned to New York to begin their final US tour.Template:Sfn Before their March 30 concert at the Anderson Theater, representatives from Epic Records, the group's American label, informed them that it was going to be recorded for a live album.Template:Sfn The group felt that it was not sufficiently prepared, but proceeded, with "Dazed and Confused" as their third number.Template:Sfn Disappointed with the playbacks, the Yardbirds rejected any idea of releasing the recordings as a live album.Template:Sfn However, after Page's rise to fame in Led Zeppelin, Epic released the album in 1971, with "Dazed and Confused" retitled "I'm Confused" (with no composer credit or performance rights organization).Template:Sfn (Within a week, Page responded with an injunction, which prevented further sales of the album.Template:Sfn) Although the recording and the group's performance is a bit rough, in a review Eder singled out the song as "something new, a slow blues as dark, forbidding, and intense as anything that the band ever cut – it showed where Page, if not his band, was heading."<ref name="Live YB">Template:AllMusic</ref> In 2017, Page remixed the Anderson Theater recordings and the song (with the correct title) was issued on Yardbirds '68.Template:Sfn

Recordings and releases

The Yardbirds never attempted to record the piece in the studio.Template:Sfn However, Page used an abbreviated version of his guitar solo from "Dazed and Confused" for the middle-section guitar solo of "Think About It".Template:Sfn

Several live recordings of "Dazed and Confused" are in release. If the song was introduced, it was announced as "Dazed and Confused" – it is unknown why Epic re-titled it "I'm Confused".Template:Sfn

Template:AllMusic</ref>

Led Zeppelin

Template:Infobox song When the Yardbirds disbanded in 1968, Page planned to record the song in the studio with the successor group he had assembled that summer.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> According to Zeppelin bassist John Paul Jones, the first time he heard the song was at the band's first rehearsal session at Gerrard Street in London, in 1968: "Jimmy played us the riffs at the first rehearsal and said, 'This is a number I want us to do'."<ref name="Snow1990">Mat Snow, "Apocalypse Then", Q magazine, December 1990, p. 77.</ref> The future Led Zeppelin recorded their version in October 1968 at Olympic Studios, London, and the song was included on their self-titled debut album (1969).Template:Sfn "Dazed and Confused" was the second song recorded at the Olympic sessions.Template:Sfn

The group recorded the song in two takes. Page played a Telecaster and violin bow as he had performed it with the Yardbirds.<ref name=pagett/>Template:Efn Singer Robert Plant wrote a new set of bluesier lyrics, according to Page,<ref name="Classic"/> though Plant is not credited on the album, due to contractual obligations to Chrysalis Records. Plant's vocal is raw and powerful, delivered with "unrelenting passion".<ref name="Planer">Template:Cite web</ref> Other than the lyrics and vocal, the song remained very similar to that performed by the Yardbirds earlier that year.<ref name="Unterberger album"/><ref name="Hodgkinson">Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

As of 2002, the 1969 promotional EP using "Babe I'm Gonna Leave You" as the A-side track and "Dazed and Confused" as B-side had been one of top ten Led Zeppelin music collectibles.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> A collector Rick Barrett, dedicated to his Led Zeppelin memorabilia, sold several copies of the promo EP for Template:Currency–500 each, "depending on the condition of the sleeve and of the record itself," said Barrett.<ref>Template:Cite interview</ref>

In June 2010, Holmes filed a lawsuit in US federal court, alleging copyright infringement and naming Page as a co-defendant.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> The suit was "dismissed with prejudice" on January 17, 2012,Template:Efn after an undisclosed settlement between Page and Holmes was reached out of court in the fall of 2011.<ref name="Court" /> Subsequent Led Zeppelin albums, such as Celebration Day (2012) and the remastered and deluxe editions of the group's debut album (2014), expanded the songwriter's credit for "Dazed and Confused" to "By Page – Inspired by Jake Holmes."<ref name=pagett>Template:Cite web</ref>

Live performances

"Dazed and Confused" was the most regularly performed song by Led Zeppelin, appearing at over 400 concerts.Template:Sfn It was played on every tour up to and including their 1975 shows at Earls Court. It was greatly expanded to include more improvisation, including short portions of other songs, and live performances could exceed 30 minutes. It was subsequently removed from their live set, although Page continued to perform parts of the bowed guitar segment during solo spots on subsequent tours, as preludes to "Achilles Last Stand" (1977 tour) and "In the Evening" (Knebworth 1979 and Tour Over Europe 1980).Template:Sfn It was part of the group's set at the Ahmet Ertegun Tribute Concert on December 10, 2007.<ref name=cd>Template:Allmusic</ref>

A live version of "Dazed and Confused" recorded July 1973 at New York's Madison Square Garden was featured in the 1976 Led Zeppelin concert film The Song Remains the Same.Template:Sfn Other live recordings are found on the following official releases:

Accolades

Publication Country Accolade Year Rank
Rock and Roll Hall of Fame US "The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's 500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll"<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> 1994 *
Pause & Play US "Time Capsule Inductions – Songs"<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> 1998 *
NME UK "117 Songs to soundtrack your summer"<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> 2003 *
Toby Creswell Australia "1001 Songs: the Great Songs of All Time"<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> 2005 *
Pitchfork Media US "The 200 Greatest Songs of the 1960s"<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> 2006 11
Q UK "The 20 Greatest Guitar Tracks"<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> 2007 2
Q UK "21 Albums That Changed Music – Key Track"<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> 2007 6

(*) designates unordered lists

Personnel

According to Jean-Michel Guesdon and Philippe Margotin:Template:Sfn

See also

Notes

Footnotes Template:Notelist

Citations Template:Reflist

References

Template:The Yardbirds Template:Led Zeppelin songs Template:Led Zeppelin

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