Robert Plant: the Bob Dylan song that “turned my world upside down”
Some songs have the power to change our entire outlook. They seem to rupture our perception of the world, filling us up with hitherto unknown ways of being. Bob Dylan had that effect on Robert Plant when the latter was still a teenager. At that time, he was still living in the Black Country with his parents. With the discovery of Dylan, however, came a powerful need to hit the road, and at the age of 16, Plant left home to start his musical education.
For the next few years, Plant jumped from group to group while working various odd jobs. When not working at Woolworths or laying tarmac, he was singing with bands like the Crawling King Snakes, through which he was introduced to drummer John Bonham. This was the height of the UK rhythm, and blues boom and Plant had already made a name for himself as one of the most impressive blues vocalists on the circuit. When Yardbirds guitarist Jimmy Page came with an offer to join his new group, Plant quickly accepted. Bonham, on the other hand, needed a bit of persuading.
Decades later, Plant was invited to share some of his favourite tracks of all time during a guest DJ spot. One of the songs he selected was the Bob Dylan song he’d been so moved by as a teenager. “This next track,” he began, “was a particular and magnificent inspiration to me when I was 15 years old.” Considering Plant left home the following year, this Dylan track might just be responsible for the singer’s entire musical career. “I think my world turned around and upside down when I heard this track from The Freewheelin Bob Dylan,” he continued. It’s ‘Down The Highway’.”
Written about his then-girlfriend Suze Rotolo (the woman who walks alongside Dylan on the cover of Freewheelin’), ‘Down The Highway’ focuses on the heartbreak Dylan felt when Suze decided to leave New York to study for eight months in the coastal town of Perugia in the capital of Umbria, the “green heart” of Italy. “My baby took my heart from me,” Dylan laments. “She packed it all up in a suitcase/ Lord, she took it away to Italy, Italy.”
Dylan’s separation from Rotolo gave birth to some of the finest songs of his early career, including ‘Don’t Think Twice, It’s Alright’, ‘Tomorrow Is a Long Time’ and ‘Boots of Spanish Leather’. He was clearly infatuated with her from the very beginning “Right from the start, I couldn’t take my eyes off her. She was the most erotic thing I’d ever seen,” he recalls in the first volume of Chronicles. “She was fair-skinned and golden-haired, full-blood Italian. The air was suddenly filled with banana leaves. We started talking, and my head started to spin.”
Dylan’s hunger to be back by Rotolo’s side fed into his image as a wanderer and pilgrim, something Plant himself found utterly intoxicating. You can revisit ‘Down The Highway’ below.
Never Miss A Beat
The Far Out Led Zeppelin Newsletter
All the latest stories about Led Zeppelin from the independent voice of culture.
Straight to your inbox.