Why Jimmy Page blamed Robert Plant for Led Zeppelin’s biggest problem
“We first played together in a small room on Gerrard Street, a basement room, which is now Chinatown,” said John Paul Jones, recalling the first time Led Zeppelin jammed together. He, Jimmy Page, John Bonham and Robert Plant all came together to see what it would sound like if they flung together a few tunes. The rest is history.
“There was just wall-to-wall amplifiers and a space for the door – and that was it. Literally, it was everyone looking at each other – ‘What shall we play?’” said Jones, “There was an old Yardbirds tune called ‘Train Kept a Rollin’… The whole room just exploded.”
It wasn’t just John Paul Jones who was blown away by the band’s initial sound; everyone in the room was. It’s easy to imagine smirks passed around as feedback ran throughout that tiny room, and the band realised they were onto something big. That was the start of the rest of their lives, as Led Zeppelin would go from being a basement band to a four-piece worthy of a place in the hearts of millions.
As is always the case with success, Led Zeppelin didn’t enjoy the spoils of being rock stars without some tough times. One of the major factors that impacted the band in the early days was claims of plagiarism. Many artists claimed that Led Zeppelin was responsible for taking musical ideas from other bands performing at the time and lyrics from artists who had written songs decades prior.
The musical claims never stuck. Some people weren’t happy with Led Zeppelin’s instrumentation, claiming that basslines, guitar runs, and structure had been taken from the likes of Jeff Beck, Vanilla Fudge, and Tim Bogart. None of these claims saw the inside of the courtroom; instead, they were just disgruntled whispers that made their way around the music industry. The same can’t be said for the band’s lyrics, though.
Jimmy Page orchestrated Led Zeppelin’s sound. Other band members helped out, of course; for instance, John Paul Jones wrote Led Zeppelin’s most complicated track, ‘Black Dog’, but for the most part, album concepts, song structure, and overall tone were Page’s. Meanwhile, Robert Plant worked on the lyrics.
Plant was good with lyrics, and there are many songs he is responsible for that aren’t contentious and that people enjoy; however, there are many Led Zeppelin songs that feature the lyrics from older folk-inspired songs. Tracks like ‘Babe I’m Gunna Leave You’ and ‘Whole Lotta Love’ landed the band in hot water, and they were on the receiving end of a lot of legal action as a result.
Jimmy Page maintains that Led Zeppelin’s legal troubles were the result of Robert Plant not doing enough to change the lyrics to tracks and copying too much from other artists. “I always tried to bring something fresh to anything that I used. I always made sure to come up with some variation,” Page said. “In fact, I think in most cases, you would never know what the original source could be. Maybe not in every case, but in most cases. So most of the comparisons rest on the lyrics.”
Page said that Plant was supposed to take inspiration from these tracks but not rewrite the lyrics word for word. “Robert was supposed to change the lyrics, and he didn’t always do that, which is what brought on most of our grief,” he concluded. “They couldn’t get us on the guitar parts or the music, but they nailed us on the lyrics … So, anyway, if there is any plagiarism, just blame Robert.”
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