The Led Zeppelin songs hated by Led Zeppelin
Being a member of a band is the same as signing up to be part of a democracy, and not every decision undertaken by the group is one that each member supports. However, for the long-term good of the band, these compromises are necessary to keep everyone happy. As a result, every member of Led Zeppelin has a song that they dislike in some capacity.
According to Jimmy Page, “fate” plays a heavy role in the formation of Led Zeppelin in 1968, and over the next decade, they carved out a rock ‘n’ roll legacy like no other. Page once explained to NPR: “It has to be sort of fate. There has to be an element of it. And it was fast. It was really fast because I’d been in the Yardbirds prior to this, and the Yardbirds were still doing shows in July of 1968.”
He continued: “They’ve [the Yardbirds] already sort of thrown in their cards; they don’t want to continue, but the last dates that we’re doing are in July, and I’ve got [Led Zeppelin] rehearsing with all of the material, and we’re doing dates in sort of September in Scandinavia.”
Following their formation, everything happened exceptionally quickly for the band, and within a couple of years, Led Zeppelin were the biggest group on the planet. Compromising was crucial to their success, and below are tracks from their excellent repertoire which members of the band dislike.
The Led Zeppelin songs hated by Led Zeppelin:
‘Stairway To Heaven’
Led Zeppelin singer Robert Plant first turned his back on ‘Stairway To Heaven’ in 1988, telling the Los Angeles Times: “I’d break out in hives if I had to sing that song in every show.” Over 30 years later, while sitting down with UCR, the frontman said: “The construction of the song, the actual musical construction, is very good. It’s one of those moments that really can stand without a vocal, and, in fact, it will stand again without a vocal, I’m sure because it’s a fine piece of music”.
He added: “Lyrically, now, I can’t relate to it, because it was so long ago. I would have no intention ever to write along those abstract lines any more … I look at it, and I tip my hat to it, and I think there are parts of it that are incredible. The way Jimmy Page took the music through and the way that the drums almost climaxed and then continued – it’s a very beautiful piece. But lyrically, now, and even vocally, I go, ‘I’m not sure about that.'”
‘All My Love’
‘All My Love’ is a Led Zeppelin track close to the heart of Robert Plant, who wrote the song as an ode to his late son, Karac. While guitarist Jimmy Page was supportive of his bandmate using music to channel his grief, musically, he did have problems with the track but decided it was best not to intervene due to the sensitive subject matter.
“I was a little worried about the [‘All My Love’] chorus,” Page said in an interview published in Brad Tolinski’s Light and Shade. “I could just imagine people doing the wave and all of that. And I thought, ‘That is not us. That is not us’.”
He added: “In its place, it was fine, but I would not have wanted to pursue that direction in the future.”
‘D’yer Mak’er’
Led Zeppelin were a rock band, and John Bonham was the heartbeat of their sound. However, with the reggae-infused ‘D’yer Maker’, Bonham wasn’t interested from the offset and didn’t try to hide his disdain for the creation during the recording process.
“John was interested in everything except jazz and reggae,” the band’s bassist John Paul Jones says in Chris Welch’s John Bonham: A Thunder of Drums. “He didn’t hate jazz, but he hated playing reggae – he thought it was really boring.”
“He wouldn’t play anything, but the same shuffle beat all the way through it,” Jones continued. “It would have been all right if he had worked at the part, [but] he wouldn’t, so it sounded dreadful.”
‘Royal Orleans’
Like many bands from their era, Led Zeppelin songs feature lyrics which don’t align with the modern world. However, even when they released ‘Royal Orleans’ in 1976, it was deemed by John Paul Jones as “Robert in his usual homophobic manner”. Jones said of the track’s backstory in 2001: “Everybody knew who those [drag queens] were. They were friends of Richard [Cole] ‘s. And yes, we knew they were transvestites. We were friends. Her name was … Her name was … Stephanie!”
“We’d see her every time we’d go to New Orleans. But Robert was a bit provincial. They weren’t like big city boys. They don’t like all that sort of thing. Richard and Jimmy and I … They were friends of the band, for God’s sake, you know. And then this idiot, Steve Davis, gets it all mixed up.” He put down Plant’s misdemeanour to having a “sheltered upbringing as lads”.
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