Yesterday (March 28), on the 50th anniversary of the release of Led Zeppelin's Houses Of The Holy album, Jimmy Page shared the demo recording, "The Season", which went on to become "The Rain Song".

Says Page: "My original idea for the opening tracks for Houses Of The Holy was that a short overture would be a rousing instrumental introduction with layered electric guitars that would segue into ’The Seasons’, later to be titled ‘The Rain Song’. Again there would be a contrasting acoustic guitar instrumental movement with melotron that could lead to the first vocal of the album and the first verse of the song.

I bought my home studio demo of a rough sketch of ‘The Rain Song’ on cassette to rehearsals to illustrate the sequence and textures of this piece to the band. During the routining of the overture now titled ‘The Plumpton aAd Worcester Races’, the half time section was born and the overture shaped in to the song, ‘The Song Remains The Same’. These rehearsals were done in Puddle Town on the River Piddle in Dorset, UK.
The first set of recordings were done at Olympic Studios with George Chkiantz.

We then came to record at Stargroves, Sir Mick Jagger’s country home, and like Headley Grange, with the Rolling Stones' recording truck.
‘The Song Remains The Same’ was played on a Fender 12 string, the same one used on ‘Becks Bolero’, with my trusty Les Paul Number One on overdubs in a standard turning. 'The Rain Song’ was an unorthodox tuning on acoustic and electric guitars. On live shows, it became a work-out feature for the double neck."

Listen below: