Although the rock revolution had already been in place more than a decade, this album was still very bracing when it came out in 1971. Led Zeppelin was "heavy metal." The band rocked harder than anyone heard on the radio. "Strident" and "bracing" come to mind.
Unfortunately the politics of this album are not "strident" or "bracing." We can fantasize about revolutionary messages sent in important battles. We can cheer along with many Christians for the message in "Stairway to Heaven," that gold is not everything, but in the end, this album is too much form and too little substance.
On a side note, "Stairway to Heaven" was a hugely popular "long" song. Whether it was performances by local bands or disc jockeys, the message from the masses was always the same: play us "Stairway to Heaven." Fortunately for us communists, we agree with its message and when most Guns'n'Roses songs bite the revolutionary dust for their misogyny, we will still have "Stairway to Heaven"! Phewww!
It's not that Led Zeppelin had nothing to say, but story-telling and fantasy are generally not progressive without special effort. The album in general provides escape from the problems of society. The bigger the problems in society, the more crashing the guitar chords have to be to make up for the perceived lack of power or satisfactory achievement in real life. Knowledge of the power of the imperialists combined with a sense of powerlessness amongst the commoners often leads to a desire for powerful music to make up for the gap.
As the heavy metal band singer David Lee Roth once said, for some people the impulse at the time was to revolution. For others, a sense of power and urgency came from escapist heavy metal. Hence, while we learn the lesson of the extremes to which electricity can be applied in music from Led Zeppelin--or face being counterrevolutionary in our attitude to music-- in the end, heavy metal fantasy like Led Zeppelin is a competitor to the revolution, not a friend. For those of us already caught up in the music, it is important to remember that it is a band-aid for our spirits or an exercise aid, not a part of the solution.