Robert Plant’s favourite Led Zeppelin song: “The finest moments”
For Robert Plant, his time with Led Zeppelin feels like several lifetimes ago. Naturally, he’s no longer the same person who fronted the heavy rock powerhouse, and for the most part, he prefers to keep this area of his life locked to the past. However, one song is a notable exception to the rule.
During their decade of dominance, Led Zeppelin barely put a foot wrong and established themselves at the forefront of the rock revolution. They duly captured the zeitgeist, and as a result, Plant cemented his status as one of the most iconic frontmen to walk the Earth.
Plant was joined on his mission by Jimmy Page on guitar, John Paul Jones on rhythm, and the powerful John Bonham on drums, which combined to create the most thrilling live band of their era.
Although Plant has grown to dislike select songs from their discography, it’s an almost faultless back catalogue. When Led Zeppelin announced they would reunite in 2007 for a one-off show, over 20 million people applied to buy tickets, which shows the strength of their legacy.
That aforementioned night in London was the perfect way to end a glittering career. Nobody had a better view of proceedings throughout their tenure than Plant, who enjoyed a front-row seat for all their triumphs and defeats.
For anyone, picking one singular favourite song by Led Zeppelin is nigh-on impossible. Naturally, as the singer of the band, this should be an even more challenging task, but not in the case of Plant, who considers ‘Kashmir’ to be a cut above the rest. The iconic song originally appeared as the lynchpin on 1975’s Physical Graffiti and signified the band’s growth. As a piece of music, ‘Kashmir’ was an experimental masterpiece that implemented Eastern influences, which showed Led Zeppelin’s progression.
By this stage, they could do anything musically, and ‘Kashmir’ proved their astounding development in the studio. Led Zeppelin were no longer the same band that stormed the London club scene in the late 1960s, and nobody was prouder than Plant of their evolution.
During a conversation with Rolling Stone, he shared: “It’s one of my favourites… that, ‘All My Love’ and ‘In the Light’ and two or three others really were the finest moments.”
Plant then explained why ‘Kashmir’ was better than any other song they produced, adding, “‘Kashmir’ in particular. It was so positive, lyrically. It’s the quest, the travels and explorations that Page and I went on to far climes well off the beaten track… That, really to me, is the Zeppelin feel.”
Initially, the track was titled ‘Driving to Kashmir’, inspired by a road trip undertaken by Plant and Page. He revealed to Mojo in 2010: “‘Kashmir’ came from a trip Jimmy and me made down the Moroccan Atlantic coast, from Agadir down to Sidi Ifni. We were just the same as the other hippies, really.”
After Led Zeppelin debuted the track in 1975, it was an unmovable object in their setlist. Fans demanded to hear it in all of its beauty wherever they performed, and the band were more than happy to meet this request, playing it at every show.
While every member of Led Zeppelin contributed immensely to make ‘Kashmir’ become a classic, Plant believes Bonham was key, stating, “It was what he didn’t do that made it work.”
In 2018, in a feature-length piece with Dan Rather, Plant spoke in further detail about his adoration for ‘Kashmir’: “It was a great achievement to take such a monstrously dramatic musical piece and find a lyric that was ambiguous enough, and a delivery that was not over-pumped.”
“It was almost the antithesis of the music, this lyric and this vocal delivery that was just about enough to get in there,” he continued.
‘Kashmir’ set a new benchmark for Led Zeppelin, in the eyes of Plant, and also represented a feat that he believes they never accomplished again. Although the singer no longer performs the track as a solo artist, his feelings of fondness for ‘Kashmir’ will never deteriorate until he draws his final breath.
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