Last of the recordings

On this day in 1978, Led Zeppelin was heading home after four weeks of recording the album In Through the Out Door. They'd been holed up for weeks at a studio facility in Stockholm, Sweden, owned by the pop group ABBA. That Christmas, Jimmy Page was said to be mixing the new material, most of which would make it onto the album in the new year.

What kept the album from getting out right away had to do with the album artwork. Led Zeppelin insisted on doing something with the album that had never been done before: There would be six different album covers, each a variation on the theme of a man in a bar who has just received a "Dear John" letter.

The same company that had designed the covers of Houses of the Holy and Presence took the job, designing a typical New Orleans barroom, taking a few shots of the same scene from six points of view, and shading them with a sepia tone to look like vintage photos.

Executives at Atlantic Records didn't know about the six different album covers until just before the album was released.