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Mar 30th 2012!⃝One of Led Zeppelin's most beautiful, acoustic songs. It was definitely inspired by the California style folk music of the 1960s.
The song features Jimmy Page playing finger-picked guitar which I believe was tuned to double drop d. John Paul Jones' plays mandolin. There are no drums on the song. It was recorded outside and supposedly one can hear a plane passing overhead at some point.
The song follows the theme of California as a mecca, as the promised land. Although it does contain other themes too. When interpreting the song it is important to remember two things:
1. Robert Plant was a self confessed hippie. For him and many other hippies California and, in particular, San Francisco, was like their version of paradise. Their Shangri-la, if you like.
2. Both Robert Plant and Jimmy Page had an infatuation with Canadian folk rocker Joni Mitchell, and much of the song is a tribute to her.
My view is that the song was designed to be more poetic in style rather than have any specific meaning.
Essentially the song is about heartache and actively seeking out love. The first woman only gives him trouble. Drinking all of his wine and smoking all his grass. So he goes to California on an airplane and experiences, first hand, an earthquake. One he has arrived he feels like he is being persecuted by the Gods. But, pulling himself together, he decides to seek out the woman with which he has now become infatuated with. When he realizes he cannot have her he seeks out the innocent virgin as often depicted in folklore, religious doctrines, and fairy-tales. The song ends by leaving the listener with an interesting vision. The narrator "standing on a hill in my mountain of dreams/ telling myself it's not as hard, hard, hard as it seems."
