The singer-songwriter Robert Plant deemed “a beacon of light”
Led Zeppelin frontman Robert Plant’s greatest asset has always been his voice, which allowed him to turn water into wine from a musical perspective.
He’s not your archetypal singer-songwriter, by any stretch of the imagination; however, it’s a breed of musician that he greatly admires and would have loved to have been in another life.
Instinctively, like most humans, Plant has a natural tendency to hone in on his flaws rather than his strengths.
On his Digging Deep podcast, Plant harshly said of his own songwriting while talking about his appreciation of Bob Dylan: “My songwriting’s pretty, it goes in a straight line. The idea of me actually taking on the guise of somebody who’s been in some kind of situation that you can only watch from afar – it’s more than I can even imagine, to voice somebody else’s condition and actually be them in the song.”
Another figure from the folk world that Plant holds in the highest esteem is the late John Prine, also known as your favourite songwriter’s favourite songwriter. His brilliance was once epitomised by Dylan, who labelled Prine’s work as “pure Proustian existentialism” and likened his wordsmith ability to “Midwestern mind trips to the nth degree.”
As much as Prine and Plant made their name in different fields, the singer-songwriter was proud to call the Led Zeppelin frontman a fan. In one of his final interviews, he told MOJO, “Robert’s a fan of mine. So is Roger Waters. A lot of the big English rocker guys from the ’70s like me.”
Prine then revealed that it wasn’t always that way, adding, “I don’t know why they weren’t fans in the ’70s. But I’m glad everyone’s come around.”
While he wasn’t an early adopter of Prine’s music, Plant sent a heartfelt video message of support when the singer-songwriter was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2019. Notably, it was only a year before Prine’s death.
In his glowing tribute to Prine’s career, Plant said, “Your work is extraordinary. It’s a vast, enduring treasury, a beacon of light in these ever-weirder times. Sometimes it seems like you’re writing for all of us, which, in fact, you probably are.”
Plant then revealed that he has a different John Prine song on most days, with his taste changing like the weather, but, on that given day, ‘Far From Me’ is “today’s favourite John Prine song for me”.
Admittedly, ‘Far From Me’ isn’t a deep cut that only his most dedicated fans love. Nevertheless, the fact that Plant has a different favourite from Prine’s prolific songbook says everything about the deep-felt appreciation he had for his work, as well as his storytelling. He was an artist who created material that could brighten up his worst day and make his best day become even brighter with the radiance that shone out of everything he touched.
As much as the loss of Prine was a dark day for music, thankfully, his music continues to live on and inspire. Just months before his unexpected death due to Covid-19, Prine was awarded the ‘Lifetime Achievement’ award from the Grammys, which thankfully, he was alive to collect. A year later, he won a further two Grammys posthumously, as the world continued to mourn a talent that was avoidably lost too soon.
However, for a musician, as much as winning Grammys is pleasant, they don’t mean as much as having the respect of your peers, and in that regard, Prine was rightly recognised in droves. Not only did he have Plant, Dylan and Roger Waters to count among his fans, but also younger artists, including Kacey Musgraves, who he took under his wing and became a mentor to.
