“So spectral and beautiful”: Robert Plant on the album The Beatles should have made
It’s still one of the great tragedies of rock and roll that we never got to see what The Beatles were capable of in the 1970s. As much as the Fab Four may not have been getting along anymore, the fact that John Lennon was silenced in 1980 cast a dark shroud over the band that could have brought beautiful music to the masses again once they were on the same page. While many fans have made their own albums of what a late-period Beatles record is, Robert Plant felt that album had already been made by one of the members.
By the time Led Zeppelin came along, though, it felt like the era the Fab Four started in was gone forever. The world had moved on to something much heavier, and even if it wasn’t as tuneful as what Lennon and McCartney had put together, it was still some of the greatest music that the masses had ever seen.
That said, most of Zeppelin’s best work couldn’t have been created without The Beatles. Page’s old outfit, The Yardbirds, had been given a big break when they were opening for the group, and listening to the ballads in Zeppelin’s later catalogue, it’s impossible to think a song like ‘Thank You’ could have come about without Paul McCartney writing something like ‘Mother Nature’s Son’ first.
Out of all the Beatles’ solo efforts, though, none of them really sounded the same. Although the rudimentary start to McCartney’s solo career was certainly interesting, no one managed to get as much raw pain out of their voice as John Lennon could on Plastic Ono Band. Whereas both head songwriters were spiralling in their own separate ways, though, George Harrison was ascending like a rocketship.
Since all of the best moments on Abbey Road came from Harrison, All Things Must Pass was the sound of him coming into his own as a songwriter. Sure, Lennon and McCartney weren’t there to hold his hand anymore, but looking through the best moments on the record, he was able to take the crux of his songwriting and make something a whole lot more interesting, like the spiritualism of ‘My Sweet Lord’ or the pure rock and roll swagger of ‘Let It Down’.
Whereas Plant was busy reaching the top of his range at the time, he still felt that Harrison had set the template for where The Beatles should have gone next, saying, “I remember when The Beatles were collapsing, it was so evident that it was happening. But then again, if you read between the lines, they had that problem that we’re free of now at this age – or I am. That kind of ego and competitive stuff. I mean, when George Harrison came out with All Things Must Pass after The Beatles, it more or less was the album that The Beatles should’ve made years before. It was so spectral and beautiful.”
And that spectral angle didn’t take long to end up in Zeppelin’s toolbox, either. Aside from Harrison suggesting that they write a ballad and inspiring ‘The Rain Song’, hearing the way that Jimmy Page played on some of their softer material had the same lyricism of Harrison’s guitar work, almost like he was trying to be the second lead vocal next to Plant.
But given that each Beatle had a stellar solo career, it might have been for the best that they called it off when they did. Although things did get ugly on the business side of things, it’s better to still have albums like All Things Must Pass and Band on the Run out in the world than having to wait for another Beatles album.
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