Exploring Jimmy Page’s Lucifer Rising

Jimmy Page started to compose his music for Anger during the time of Led Zeppelin’s most well-known album, ‘IV’ or ‘Four Symbols’ (known for its use of a symbol that represented each band member, Jimmy Page chose Zoso, a reference to Crowley’s magic).

Anger and Page had become friends through their mutual devotion to the magician Aleister Crowley, Page had acquired Crowley’s old home near Loch Ness, ‘Boleskine House’, and invited Anger to the house to help exorcise it of the ‘headless ghost’ that he felt haunted the place. During the visited Page agreed to produce the soundtrack for Anger’s next film ‘Lucifer Rising’.

The film was started in 1966 whilst Anger was living in a large house in San Francisco known as the Russian Embassy. It explored his Thelemite beliefs and was based on the Aeon of Horus. Anger had the name of Lucifer tattooed upon his chest before shooting and then set to work.

Anger wanted 40 minutes of music and had a major falling out with Page over the lack of completion on the guitarist’s part. It went one step further when Charlotte Martin, Jimmy’s girlfriend, kicked him out of the basement in Boleskine, a space he’d been occupying with equipment.

So one of the weirder stories you’ll hear today ends with a director cursing one of the greatest guitarists ever to have walked the earth. Safe to say, he probably can still write a tune or two Kenneth, like this one.
Read More: Led Zeppelin: Physical Graffiti
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