The CSNY song Robert Plant can’t live without
Led Zeppelin frontman Robert Plant has always been open about his influences. From Elvis Presley and the great rock and rollers of his childhood to more modern bands that tickle his fancy, Plant takes inspiration from many places, giving life to an oeuvre as stylistically varied as they come.
Demonstrating the reach of Plant’s taste is that he once effused about We Care a Lot, the 1985 debut album of alternative metal pioneers Faith No More. The record, featuring frontman Chuck Mosley before he was ousted and replaced with Mike Patton, remains one of their best-loved releases. A fan of the unapologetic nature of the band, Plant said he liked it “very much”.
“Their first album. It’s like, I, ME, listen to this,” Plant explained. “And if you don’t like it, fuck off!!! You can’t spend all your life whimpering away about the ex-wife. The vocal attitude, the hard, heavy garage rap. I like very much.”
On the other side of the coin, one area that Robert Plant has always been particularly fond of is folk. It’s a genre from which Led Zeppelin excelled, with moments such as ‘Gallows Pole’, ‘The Battle of Evermore’ and ‘Going to California’, three of their most impactful compositions. Given this artistic predilection and the fact that Led Zeppelin were, by definition, a countercultural group, it makes sense that Robert Plant should also be a big fan of the movement’s definitive supergroup, Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young.
This might be ironic, given that Led Zeppelin were accused of imitating CSNY on the derided Led Zeppelin III, despite featuring acoustic numbers on both of their previous albums. Still, when appearing on the BBC’s Desert Island Discs in 2022, Plant candidly chose one of their most culturally significant songs, ‘Ohio’, for his playlist when hypothetically marooned.
Plant adores the song and the fact that it captured the zeitgeist. Famously, ‘Ohio’ is imbued with a tangible sense of tragedy. Neil Young wrote it in response to the Kent State shootings when the National Guard opened fire on unarmed college students protesting the Vietnam War expansion into Cambodia. Four of the unarmed group were killed and nine injured, making it one of the darkest chapters of the period.
Plant candidly commented when speaking to the BBC, explaining his love for the countercultural anthem: “This is the song which was written which will remind us forever how it can go nastily, badly wrong.”
Listen to ‘Ohio’ by CSNY below.
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