D'yer Mak'er

"D'yer Mak'er" /dʒəˈmeɪkə/ is a song by the English rock band Led Zeppelin, from their 1973 album Houses of the Holy. The title is a play on a contraction of the phrase "Did you make her" and the word "Jamaica".

Overview

This song was meant to imitate reggae and its "dub" derivative emerging from Jamaica in the early 1970s. Its genesis is traced to Led Zeppelin's rehearsals at Stargroves in 1972, when drummer John Bonham started with a beat similar to 1950s doo-wop, and then twisted it into a slight off beat tempo, upon which a reggae influence emerged. The distinctive drum sound was created by placing three microphones a good distance away from Bonham's drums.

This track, as well as another song entitled "The Crunge", was initially not taken seriously by many listeners, and some critics reserved their harshest criticism for these two arrangements. In an interview he gave in 1977, Jimmy Page referred to this negative response:

Led Zeppelin bassist John Paul Jones has expressed his distaste for the song, suggesting that it started off as a studio joke and wasn't thought through carefully enough. Upon the album's release, Robert Plant was keen to issue the track as a single in the United Kingdom. Atlantic Records went so far as to distribute advance promotional copies to DJs (now valuable collectors' items). While it was released in the US, and the single peaked at No. 20 on 29 December 1973, it was never released in the UK.