![]() ![]() Does it represent me now? It doesn’t represent me now, but maybe it still does in a way. I mean, does “Black Dog” work anymore for me? It did in 1971. So for me, it makes no sense to consider a distance and the meanderings of such a long time ago. Then we move along and we leave that moment of enlightenment or madness or whatever behind. I think in all my times and all the changes that I’ve created and that we all create - the thought and the written words - everything rests in a particular moment. Song whose meaning has changed the most for you I longed to head back to the Atlas Mountains, to the place where it was solace and joy, but at the same time, intrigue and adventure. That particular song’s lyric relates to the absolutely desperate need to get out of the jail, out of the wheelchair, or out of the whole syndrome of being stuck in wherever I was. So, yeah, “Achilles Last Stand.” I spent some time in Greece, probably about six or seven months, after a car wreck in 1975. New art, new use of materials, raw materials, bringing poetry, and bringing the mix of the bloods. It was far more random and a lot more basic, but people were always on the move and finding new expressions and bringing new stuff through. But then, of course, it was always colonialism anyway. I was intrigued because I could see it in the buildings and in the landscape long before colonialism. This area that we live in and around was once considered to be the end of the world. I think these islands from which we hail were perhaps some of the last areas of Europe, and if you like, the central Mediterranean, that really did move out and out. The whole idea of quest and the value of movement. In the places where my parents took me and in the place where I live even now - which can’t be more than about six miles from where I was raised - I saw another time and a difference. My first influence was coming face-to-face with other times before the mass onslaught of everything that we now know. The little shards and shivers that make myths and seek the magical adventure. Later on in my teens, I started reading Beowulf and the sagas, which reflected a kind of deeper connection with the islands, which are my home. Lewis and Lewis Spence and the unknown works, or mostly forgotten works, of J. Think of “No Quarter,” “The Song Remains the Same,” “Kashmir,” and “Ramble On.” And today on Raise the Roof with “High and Lonesome.” As a teenager, I was drawn to the work of C.S. Much of my lyric and melodic input I now see wrapped in these journey songs. It may not be immediately recognizable as such, but I would choose “Achilles Last Stand,” from Presence. Song that’s built the strongest mythology Nonetheless, I still know those stories, and that’s what got me to those songs.” Mercifully, he chose the latter path this time around. It doesn’t mean to say that any of the processes that got me to those songs are the ways that I live my time now. Or you can actually explain some of it away. “You can either send the whole thing up because it’s such a long time ago and say it is what it is. Before that, though, he wanted to convey a message to everyone reading this piece: “I’m fully aware of the fact that there are two paths you can go by with these types of questions,” Plant says. Plant and I chat for well over an hour - “The floodlights are lighting up in the next town,” he observes at one point - only saying good-bye when he realizes he has to meet Bonham’s sister and her husband at a nearby soccer game. As he likes to put it, “I’ve sort of woven my way through it all.” ![]() In the ensuing decades, Plant’s momentum was infinite, even when his music digressed and changed with purpose when he embarked on his journey as a solo artist in 1982. He was, of course, the platonic ideal of a rock front man with Led Zeppelin until their disbandment in 1980 - his voice a golden hammer, and his lyrics an oft-inscrutable scripture of raw power, for his soul partners Jimmy Page, John Paul Jones, and John Bonham. It’s this type of unpredictable spirit - the project, like its Album of the Year–winning predecessor, Raising Sand, is rooted in bluegrass and country traditions - that has guided Plant for the majority of his career. We’re connecting in late December, more than a year after Plant released his stunning collaborative album with Alison Krauss, Raise the Roof, which is in contention for three Grammy Awards at this year’s ceremony. If anything, the mist is making him stronger. It’s a “gray and miserable” day in western England, but Robert Plant is in the mood to be challenged. Photo-Illustration: Vulture Photo by Koh Hasebe/Shinko Music/Getty Images “I’ve been reading and studying this stuff and finding all the points of reference between myth, fairy tale, and reality, because it runs really close.” ![]()
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