As The Yardbirds took their final bow in 1968, Led Zeppelin rose from the ashes to rival The Rolling Stones and The Who in the immediate post-Beatles climate. The band’s heavier blues style, fuelled by John Bonham’s thunderous percussion and Jimmy Page’s rapturous guitar command, was adorned by the powerful yet dynamic vocals of Robert Plant.
Formerly a session musician, Page was the only former Yardbird willing to continue. Finding himself isolated, he sought A-grade musicians to create the ultimate heavy rock band. After hearing of a unique rock singer from Birmingham, Page put his nose to the trail and wound up in front of Plant, then the singer of Band of Joy.
Plant once remembered their first encounter: “I was appearing at this college when [manager Peter Grant] and Jimmy turned up and asked me if I’d like to join the Yardbirds. I knew the Yardbirds had done a lot of work in America – which to me meant audiences who would want to know what I might have to offer – so naturally, I was very interested.”
During this meeting, the frontman sang Jefferson Airplane’s song ‘Somebody To Love’ to Page. “When I auditioned him and heard him sing, I immediately thought there must be something wrong with him personality-wise or that he had to be impossible to work with because I just could not understand why, after he told me he’d been singing for a few years already, he hadn’t become a big name yet,” Page recalled. “So I had him down to my place for a little while, just to sort of check him out, and we got along great. No problems.”
For the most part, Page’s dream team was perfect: they struck a fine balance both on and off the stage, embodying the quintessential rock ‘n’ roll lifestyle of excess. However, towards the end of the 1970s, Led Zeppelin began to show signs of disrepair, foreshadowing Bonham’s tragic demise in 1980.
The animosity between the four members rose to a boil throughout the final two albums, Presence and In Through The Out Door. For the most part, a chasm split the band in half; while Page and Bonham sustained a wild lifestyle, Plant and Jones appeared more committed to studio exploits, turning up to sessions on time and in the right headspace. Page and Bonham would often record their parts during inefficient late-night sessions.
This fractious state was reflected in several songs during the period, including 1976’s ‘Hots On for Nowhere’ and 1979’s ‘Carouselambra’. Plant wrote the former while recovering from his 1975 car accident. The lyrics reflected feelings towards his inhibitory injuries and his concurrent disagreements with Page. “I’ve got friends who would give me fuck all” was the most revealing line.
By 1979, this bitterness had dissipated to a more general feeling of hopelessness. “Where was your word? Where did you go? Where was your helping? Where was your bow?” Plant sings in ‘Carouselambra’.
“I thought parts of ‘Carouselambra’ were good, especially the darker dirges that Pagey developed,” Plant reflected in a 2003 conversation with Mojo. “And I rue it so much now because the lyrics on ‘Carouselambra’ were actually about that environment and that situation. The whole story of Led Zeppelin in its latter years is in that song… and I can’t hear the words!”
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Listen to ‘Hots On for Nowhere’, Robert Plant’s bitter song about Jimmy Page, below.
