The Robert Plant song about a love affair on tour: “She’s a great, powerful lady”
After such colossal success with stadium monsters Led Zeppelin and cementing themselves in rock lore with lauded albums such as their four self-titled LPs and 1973’s Houses of the Holy, frontman Robert Plant kept himself busy establishing himself as a solo artist for the 1990s and beyond, releasing the Steve Albini produced Walking into Clarksdale with Zeppelin guitarist Jimmy Page, plus critically acclaimed collaborations with country and bluegrass singer Alison Krauss.
Plant was sincerely connected to the musical climate around him, remarking in a 1993 interview, “I like a group from Seattle called Soundgarden, and yeah, I like Faith No More. I like Alannah Myles’ voice. I think she’s got a great voice. She’s touring with us too. She sings beautifully.”
Riding high from ’89’s mammoth power-ballad ‘Black Velvet’, followed by the Grammy-nominated Rockinghorse in ’92, Canadian singer Alannah Myles was at the peak of her commercial success when she joined Plant’s Manic Nirvana tour of the early ’90s. During this collaborative period, much speculation arose around the nature of their relationship and possible inspiration for one of Plant’s biggest hits.
Fate of Nation‘s lead single ’29 Palms’, an ambiguous love song detailing one’s longing for a woman based in California’s Mojave Desert, contains plenty of intriguing lyrical details that hint at a private romantic underpinning to their creative partnership. When pressed on the song’s meaning in an interview with Network, Plant coyly stated, “We did tour together. We’re good friends. I think the world of her. She’s a great, powerful lady. She has one of the finest voices of the idiom. She was always very kind to me, very warm-hearted. But the road is the road. Forget about all the rumours. Everything is true and untrue. ’29 Palms’ was written on tour the last time we were in California.”
Plant clearly wished to keep the press guessing and maintain the song’s oblique drama. Further lyrical scrutiny adds further credence to the rumours, though the lines “It comes kinda hard, when I hear your voice on the radio, taking me back down the road that leads back to you” makes it hard to infer anything else but Plant’s pain hearing the object of his affection over the airwaves. Crooned with evident passion, ’29 Palms’ is unmistakably fuelled by a raw and confessional energy which substantiates the whispers of Myles’ central inspiration for the song.
There’s more. “Her velvet glove” purred in the opening verse cannot just be a coincidence, uncannily referencing Myles’ ‘Black Velvet’ hit. Listen closely to the opening bass. Its thick and steady groove bears a remarkable sonic similarity to the power ballad’s distinctly arresting slap.
Mystery and intrigue followed Plant and his former Led Zeppelin’s work, with fans poring over the meanings behind anthems like ‘Stairway to Heaven’ and trying their very best to uncover hidden, backward messages. Perhaps the inconclusive nature of ’29 Palms’ is what makes it a much-loved piece of Plant’s wieldy body of work, imbuing the song with a romantic intrigue that keeps people discovering and re-rediscovering.
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