Jimmy Page wrote this and first recorded it when he was with still with The Yardbirds. This was the last Zeppelin song Page wrote without any input from Robert Plant. It's also the only track on Led Zeppelin III for which Plant didn't write the lyrics.
In the mid 1960s, Jackie DeShannon (What the World Needs Now Is Love, Put a Little Love in Your Heart) was a companion of Jimmy Page. It is likely that Page wrote the song "Tangerine" (which appeared on the third Led Zeppelin album) after the breakup of his relationship with DeShannon in early 1965.
Jimmy Page played a pedal steel guitar on this track. He told Guitar Player magazine in 1977: "On the first LP there's a pedal steel. I had never played steel before, but I just picked it up. There's a lot of things I do first time around that I haven't done before. In fact, I hadn't touched a pedal steel from the first album to the third. It's a bit of a pinch really from the things that Chuck Berry did. Nevertheless, it fits. I use pedal steel in 'Your Time Is Gonna Come.' It sounds like a slide or something. It's more out of tune on the first album because I hadn't got a kit to put it together."
Why does this song fade to silence a few seconds in? Jimmy Page explained when previewing the song for Melody Maker in 1970: "That's commonly known as a false start. It was a tempo guide, and it seemed like a good idea to leave it in – at the time. I was trying to keep the tempo down a bit. I'm not so sure now it was a good idea. Everybody asks what the hell is going on."
On the , during the introduction, you can hear Plant saying "this is a song of love". In the background there is John Bonham replying "Oh, God".
Good stuff. Thanks, COF.
Here's the Yardbird's version
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Interesting. I haven't heard that. I like Led Zeppelin's version better. Thanks for all the info. You da mane.
III is such an underrated album, but there’s so many great songs on it. Gallows Pole is another good one.
In the "Industry" I suppose it was viewed in a little lesser status, but it was also judged against their other work so that's a pretty high bar. I personally find all their albums to have something to offer, always excellent if you evaluate each on its own at the time in their career.
Gallows Pole is a very, very old song with a long and interesting history. Here's some of the story:
https://musicfor.us/2019/03/14/led-zeppelin-gallows-pole-1970/
(post is archived)