Why Rock Loves Never Die

Robert Plant. That name has stirred a number of emotions within me over the years. First was the vague kind of recognition that I have about a lot of things, and you know, I don't remember the first time I heard of him. Then came idle curiosity- who is this man in this band of whom so much has been said, done and written? Who is this man with the sub-Parton hair and the spray-on jeans?

I can't lie to you: it's not like Led Zeppelin has always been a part of my life. My dad doesn't dislike that kind of music so much as just completely disregard it, so it wasn't on the record player when I was young, unlike Buddy Holly or Elvis. I had to find these guys on my own, and it's funny, but it was less obvious than The Doors were. Huh. Well anyway, I know I had IV with me when I went to California. Within a year, I'd bought a bunch of the other records too- I remember really hearing Houses of the Holy for the first time in Lancaster. Traveling Riverside Blues was one of the first Zep videos I saw on Vh1 Classic, and I loved it. Ironically of course, it's not even something they released at the time. 

As some of you know, I was in love with these guys from the start- there was never a real middle ground between me and The Zep. I believe, in fact, thinking on it, that the great love for Zeppelin began at around the same time this blog caper started. If I'm right. I don't remember what I was listening to that Summer, but I think Zeppelin featured quite strongly. Thin Lizzy got a mention in mid-December 2002 "listening to a lot of Thin Lizzy lately, interspersed with Nat King Cole." Robert got his first, seemingly throwaway mention on 28th December 2002... but sure, don't you know these things are never throwaway with me when it comes to rock and roll: "One of my dreams, my very real dreams is to be a rock musician. I want to be the girl who makes it in the last bastion of masculinity. Of course, I'm not exactly feminine. I want to be Jim and Robert Plant and Phil and John all rolled up into one."

The Zeppelin (and beyond that Robert alone) turned out to be the antibiotic for the Doors infection I had. That nearly destroyed me (and I'm not convinced I'm out the woods even now) but Led Zeppelin (and my actual friends, I hasten to add) pulled me out of the hole. Say what you like about them, but it's hard to be miserable when you listen to Led Zeppelin. Call them crass, sexist or whatever, but they're so rarely depressing... unlike the Doors, who were crass, sexist and depressing for quite a proportion of their recording career.

You know, the first person I noticed in Zeppelin was Jimmy. I thought that it (and by extension I myself) was all about the guitar sound back then, but now I know there's more than that. I'm not about any particular thing any more, although guitars are my great love, because I know that for all the guitar skill in the world, no twenty-minute guitar solo is bearable unless there's a great singer coming up. Actually, I'd ask most guitarists to put a lid on it somewhere around the fifteen minute mark. Less is more, etc etc.

There's one big, glaring difference between Robert Plant and some of the other people who get their mentions here a lot. It's perhaps so glaring that you haven't thought of it, or perhaps you have. It's this: Robert Plant is alive. Imagine the novelty, the sheer scuffing novelty of having a hero that was and remains gloriously, wonderously alive!

It's that novelty, and I maintain that alone, which led to something I have refused to acknowledge openly and publicly until now (except to The Best Friend. She's exempt from the definition of 'public'). I have, in my time, had a monster of a crush on Robert Plant. I mean, one of those all-consuming, can't-sleep can't-eat crushes. One of those childish, girlish live-happily-ever-after fucking crushes. Don't laugh. I know you mostly guessed, because I didn't hide it so much as try to dodge it. I'm sure you mostly find it really funny or whatever. I never did.

I mean come on, try to imagine that there's this voice you can't live without. Really can't stand to be away from it. Plant's voice isn't the only one of those I've got, and he certainly wasn't the first or last or greatest. But for awhile, it caused me genuine anxiety to be away from it, genuine stress. Now try to imagine that you believe yourself in love with the owner of said voice. Done? Right, now imagine that he's thirty-three years older than you are, with children a decade older than you. Now imagine that you know all the shit he's done down the years, apocryphal, seafood-based or otherwise.

Now try and reconcile all of that to the concept 'happy-ever-after' and see what it does to your head. Sure, I had a monster crush on old Perce, but it wasn't out of choice. Even at the time, I was sure it was the novelty of the guy being alive. Then again, that does a disservice to him and to the dead guys, because I don't think I'd be in love with Philip or with Jim if they were alive, at least not in a straightforward romantic sense. It's never been that fucking simple with these people.

I've had crushes in my time. Going back to find my first mention of Percy on LJ, I discovered that back in late 2002, I had apparently had a crush on Josh Hartnett. Not only had I forgotten this, I don't even remember how it felt. It can't have lasted long, although I'm sure there was something in California. I don't remember. My very first crush is currently buggering about with David Gest in the jungle (this very sentence is the kind of thing he'd sue over as well ;) ). It's not like I haven't had crushes in my time: I'm not actually dead inside, I just live as if I were. There's a difference, of course: I'd forgotten about the bloke from the Unwatchable Pearl Harbor... but the day I forget about Robert Plant is the day I enter Hell.

Because no, it wasn't just the novelty. It wasn't based on the fucking trousers, nor the hair, nor the smile. No, these are the things silly girl crushes are made of and those always die. The crush on Percy did, although he's still beautiful, the trousers are still DVT inducing and the smile is still a killer. No, rock loves never die, because rock never dies. As long as you love the music, I'll love the man. It's possible, it's utterly, utterly possible, to look at these people and see their beauty and their charm without falling in love with it. Sure, I did it with Scott Gorham for years, I've done it with Dean Martin and Jimmy Page, with George and John and Ringo and Paul, with all the people you could mention that I have loved and respected. I'll tell you at length why these people are wondrous, why they're worthy of my devotion. Jim Morrison's a special case because he exists on a different, but still non-romantic plane of thought. Philip Lynott too. These guys, by dying, have given me other things, they each exist in my world for reasons apart from everyone else. One is the demon on my left shoulder and the other is the demon on my right, obviously.

I'm getting off the point I came here to make. Nine Lives came out today, which is a boxed set (in time for Christmas! How handy, as if it had been meticulously planned!)  of Robert Plant's solo records, right from Pictures at Eleven to Mighty Rearranger. Sure, I had four or five of them already, but there was a DVD with a documentary and twenty music videos from the last twenty-five years and so I handed over fifty quid without a thought. It's a rock fool thing, OK?

I have been reminded of all the reasons it is so easy to love this guy. He's always been teetering on the line between sublime and ridiculous, and crosses onto either side as often as the other. These videos have been at times, laugh out loud ridiculous, but the music is almost always sublime. He can't dance and never could. The kind of clothes he's worn down the years makes me want to take a machete to his wardrobe and the videos look, on occasion, like they were made by two tone-deaf eight-year-olds with a budget of no more than £5.25 and a packet of Frazzles. His relationship to the truth is a bit ropey- his answers to the Shark Incident question have been different every time he's been asked since it happened. "I honestly don't remember." "Nothing to do with me, honest, Guv." "Oh yeah, that happened, although it weren't me, Guv. Took the wife in to have a look." "Oh, it was Richard Cole and Bonzo, I wasn't there." "It was just Richard Cole. None of us were there." "Oh yeah, we were all there."  Then there's his Q interview awhile back where he swears that he never cheated on his wife throughout his Zeppelin career. Now, the tone of the conversation isn't sufficiently put across, but I don't believe that as far as I can throw Arnie in a Humvee. His arrogance at the height of Zeppelin is almost sickening: "Some days I look out and want to fuck the whole front row." Moreoever, the Golden God moment. And for the love of God, the man has willingly recorded music with Phil Collins, more than once.

Then again, he's always been funny and remarkably self-effacing. In that same Q interview, when asked what he'd like to say of his Eighties output, he replied: "Is 'sorry' enough?" Adorable, innee?

Moreover, he's never rested on the laurels chucked at him in his Led Zeppelin days. Forgive me for now sounding like a sycophantic music magazine article, but he has never stayed still. He's got the music that he's always loved from the fifties, he's always had the blues, but he's found other things to love also. The music has never been quite the same, and it's never been created for the consumption of thousands. Led Zeppelin were a stadium band, but Robert Plant is an act one should see in small places, like Somerset House as the sun sets behind him when the air is heavy with rain that he seems to be keeping at bay with his superpowers. Led Zeppelin were a band to sell millions of records and take over radio. Robert Plant is an act for the believers, for the people who love music, for the people willing to put some effort in. Led Zeppelin are a band to giggle over, to joke about tight trousers and big hair and sharks. Robert Plant is a singer to listen to and take notice of on a higher plane of existence.

Robert Plant is an incredibly well-travelled, intelligent and articulate person who actually thinks about the music he writes and sings... which is why the Small Faces thing was such a fucking disappointment to me... but this box proves that a moment's outright plagiarism (only in my opinion, of couse) has been smashed to pieces by a solo career that, for sheer scope and originality has not been equalled by anyone in rock music who was ever in a band. Not McCartney, nor Harrison, nor Lennon. Not any Stone or Lizzy, nor any Door. I dare you, I challenge you all, to equal it. Let me rephrase that: Plenty of musicians are eclectic, searching for all kinds in all places... but do they sound like him as well?

His voice still makes my soul soar. The 'Going To California' rendition this summer at Somerset House made me weep. A fucking song, one that's never been my favourite, made me weep for the beauty of it. My crush, that silly thing, died out after a few months... but the song remains the same, the voice is still the thing that captures my being and makes it joyful. Jim Morrison is the dark shadow on my soul... and Robert Plant is the light that helps it fade.

I don't care about shit 80s videos, Phil Collins collaborations, curly mullets, whatever... I think that since Bonzo died, Plant has been making the records he wants to make, and I love that. Because it's the music I love, because it's the man I respect and not the other way around, it doesn't end. Crushes end, but it's impossible to fall out of love with the music you adore. I'll love Robert Plant forever, but not in the way most people will assume. It has nothing to do with silver and turquoise jewellery or jeans or hair or legends and myths and the nonsense. It is the music, it is that voice, that scuffing indefinable voice. Once that has you in its grip, you can't fall out of love with it: it will not let you.

He can't dance and has no sense of personal rhythm. He has some of the worst dress sense I've ever seen. These days he has a face like a bag of chamois leathers. But God, I adore that man. It's true: a beautiful voice makes most things seem so trivial, and it makes for a real love that lasts for always.

Why Rock Loves Never Die

Robert Plant. That name has stirred a number of emotions within me over the years. First was the vague kind of recognition that I have about a lot of things, and you know, I don't remember the first time I heard of him. Then came idle curiosity- who is this man in this band of whom so much has been said, done and written? Who is this man with the sub-Parton hair and the spray-on jeans?

I can't lie to you: it's not like Led Zeppelin has always been a part of my life. My dad doesn't dislike that kind of music so much as just completely disregard it, so it wasn't on the record player when I was young, unlike Buddy Holly or Elvis. I had to find these guys on my own, and it's funny, but it was less obvious than The Doors were. Huh. Well anyway, I know I had IV with me when I went to California. Within a year, I'd bought a bunch of the other records too- I remember really hearing Houses of the Holy for the first time in Lancaster. Traveling Riverside Blues was one of the first Zep videos I saw on Vh1 Classic, and I loved it. Ironically of course, it's not even something they released at the time. 

As some of you know, I was in love with these guys from the start- there was never a real middle ground between me and The Zep. I believe, in fact, thinking on it, that the great love for Zeppelin began at around the same time this blog caper started. If I'm right. I don't remember what I was listening to that Summer, but I think Zeppelin featured quite strongly. Thin Lizzy got a mention in mid-December 2002 "listening to a lot of Thin Lizzy lately, interspersed with Nat King Cole." Robert got his first, seemingly throwaway mention on 28th December 2002... but sure, don't you know these things are never throwaway with me when it comes to rock and roll: "One of my dreams, my very real dreams is to be a rock musician. I want to be the girl who makes it in the last bastion of masculinity. Of course, I'm not exactly feminine. I want to be Jim and Robert Plant and Phil and John all rolled up into one."

The Zeppelin (and beyond that Robert alone) turned out to be the antibiotic for the Doors infection I had. That nearly destroyed me (and I'm not convinced I'm out the woods even now) but Led Zeppelin (and my actual friends, I hasten to add) pulled me out of the hole. Say what you like about them, but it's hard to be miserable when you listen to Led Zeppelin. Call them crass, sexist or whatever, but they're so rarely depressing... unlike the Doors, who were crass, sexist and depressing for quite a proportion of their recording career.

You know, the first person I noticed in Zeppelin was Jimmy. I thought that it (and by extension I myself) was all about the guitar sound back then, but now I know there's more than that. I'm not about any particular thing any more, although guitars are my great love, because I know that for all the guitar skill in the world, no twenty-minute guitar solo is bearable unless there's a great singer coming up. Actually, I'd ask most guitarists to put a lid on it somewhere around the fifteen minute mark. Less is more, etc etc.

There's one big, glaring difference between Robert Plant and some of the other people who get their mentions here a lot. It's perhaps so glaring that you haven't thought of it, or perhaps you have. It's this: Robert Plant is alive. Imagine the novelty, the sheer scuffing novelty of having a hero that was and remains gloriously, wonderously alive!

It's that novelty, and I maintain that alone, which led to something I have refused to acknowledge openly and publicly until now (except to The Best Friend. She's exempt from the definition of 'public'). I have, in my time, had a monster of a crush on Robert Plant. I mean, one of those all-consuming, can't-sleep can't-eat crushes. One of those childish, girlish live-happily-ever-after fucking crushes. Don't laugh. I know you mostly guessed, because I didn't hide it so much as try to dodge it. I'm sure you mostly find it really funny or whatever. I never did.

I mean come on, try to imagine that there's this voice you can't live without. Really can't stand to be away from it. Plant's voice isn't the only one of those I've got, and he certainly wasn't the first or last or greatest. But for awhile, it caused me genuine anxiety to be away from it, genuine stress. Now try to imagine that you believe yourself in love with the owner of said voice. Done? Right, now imagine that he's thirty-three years older than you are, with children a decade older than you. Now imagine that you know all the shit he's done down the years, apocryphal, seafood-based or otherwise.

Now try and reconcile all of that to the concept 'happy-ever-after' and see what it does to your head. Sure, I had a monster crush on old Perce, but it wasn't out of choice. Even at the time, I was sure it was the novelty of the guy being alive. Then again, that does a disservice to him and to the dead guys, because I don't think I'd be in love with Philip or with Jim if they were alive, at least not in a straightforward romantic sense. It's never been that fucking simple with these people.

I've had crushes in my time. Going back to find my first mention of Percy on LJ, I discovered that back in late 2002, I had apparently had a crush on Josh Hartnett. Not only had I forgotten this, I don't even remember how it felt. It can't have lasted long, although I'm sure there was something in California. I don't remember. My very first crush is currently buggering about with David Gest in the jungle (this very sentence is the kind of thing he'd sue over as well ;) ). It's not like I haven't had crushes in my time: I'm not actually dead inside, I just live as if I were. There's a difference, of course: I'd forgotten about the bloke from the Unwatchable Pearl Harbor... but the day I forget about Robert Plant is the day I enter Hell.

Because no, it wasn't just the novelty. It wasn't based on the fucking trousers, nor the hair, nor the smile. No, these are the things silly girl crushes are made of and those always die. The crush on Percy did, although he's still beautiful, the trousers are still DVT inducing and the smile is still a killer. No, rock loves never die, because rock never dies. As long as you love the music, I'll love the man. It's possible, it's utterly, utterly possible, to look at these people and see their beauty and their charm without falling in love with it. Sure, I did it with Scott Gorham for years, I've done it with Dean Martin and Jimmy Page, with George and John and Ringo and Paul, with all the people you could mention that I have loved and respected. I'll tell you at length why these people are wondrous, why they're worthy of my devotion. Jim Morrison's a special case because he exists on a different, but still non-romantic plane of thought. Philip Lynott too. These guys, by dying, have given me other things, they each exist in my world for reasons apart from everyone else. One is the demon on my left shoulder and the other is the demon on my right, obviously.

I'm getting off the point I came here to make. Nine Lives came out today, which is a boxed set (in time for Christmas! How handy, as if it had been meticulously planned!)  of Robert Plant's solo records, right from Pictures at Eleven to Mighty Rearranger. Sure, I had four or five of them already, but there was a DVD with a documentary and twenty music videos from the last twenty-five years and so I handed over fifty quid without a thought. It's a rock fool thing, OK?

I have been reminded of all the reasons it is so easy to love this guy. He's always been teetering on the line between sublime and ridiculous, and crosses onto either side as often as the other. These videos have been at times, laugh out loud ridiculous, but the music is almost always sublime. He can't dance and never could. The kind of clothes he's worn down the years makes me want to take a machete to his wardrobe and the videos look, on occasion, like they were made by two tone-deaf eight-year-olds with a budget of no more than £5.25 and a packet of Frazzles. His relationship to the truth is a bit ropey- his answers to the Shark Incident question have been different every time he's been asked since it happened. "I honestly don't remember." "Nothing to do with me, honest, Guv." "Oh yeah, that happened, although it weren't me, Guv. Took the wife in to have a look." "Oh, it was Richard Cole and Bonzo, I wasn't there." "It was just Richard Cole. None of us were there." "Oh yeah, we were all there."  Then there's his Q interview awhile back where he swears that he never cheated on his wife throughout his Zeppelin career. Now, the tone of the conversation isn't sufficiently put across, but I don't believe that as far as I can throw Arnie in a Humvee. His arrogance at the height of Zeppelin is almost sickening: "Some days I look out and want to fuck the whole front row." Moreoever, the Golden God moment. And for the love of God, the man has willingly recorded music with Phil Collins, more than once.

Then again, he's always been funny and remarkably self-effacing. In that same Q interview, when asked what he'd like to say of his Eighties output, he replied: "Is 'sorry' enough?" Adorable, innee?

Moreover, he's never rested on the laurels chucked at him in his Led Zeppelin days. Forgive me for now sounding like a sycophantic music magazine article, but he has never stayed still. He's got the music that he's always loved from the fifties, he's always had the blues, but he's found other things to love also. The music has never been quite the same, and it's never been created for the consumption of thousands. Led Zeppelin were a stadium band, but Robert Plant is an act one should see in small places, like Somerset House as the sun sets behind him when the air is heavy with rain that he seems to be keeping at bay with his superpowers. Led Zeppelin were a band to sell millions of records and take over radio. Robert Plant is an act for the believers, for the people who love music, for the people willing to put some effort in. Led Zeppelin are a band to giggle over, to joke about tight trousers and big hair and sharks. Robert Plant is a singer to listen to and take notice of on a higher plane of existence.

Robert Plant is an incredibly well-travelled, intelligent and articulate person who actually thinks about the music he writes and sings... which is why the Small Faces thing was such a fucking disappointment to me... but this box proves that a moment's outright plagiarism (only in my opinion, of couse) has been smashed to pieces by a solo career that, for sheer scope and originality has not been equalled by anyone in rock music who was ever in a band. Not McCartney, nor Harrison, nor Lennon. Not any Stone or Lizzy, nor any Door. I dare you, I challenge you all, to equal it. Let me rephrase that: Plenty of musicians are eclectic, searching for all kinds in all places... but do they sound like him as well?

His voice still makes my soul soar. The 'Going To California' rendition this summer at Somerset House made me weep. A fucking song, one that's never been my favourite, made me weep for the beauty of it. My crush, that silly thing, died out after a few months... but the song remains the same, the voice is still the thing that captures my being and makes it joyful. Jim Morrison is the dark shadow on my soul... and Robert Plant is the light that helps it fade.

I don't care about shit 80s videos, Phil Collins collaborations, curly mullets, whatever... I think that since Bonzo died, Plant has been making the records he wants to make, and I love that. Because it's the music I love, because it's the man I respect and not the other way around, it doesn't end. Crushes end, but it's impossible to fall out of love with the music you adore. I'll love Robert Plant forever, but not in the way most people will assume. It has nothing to do with silver and turquoise jewellery or jeans or hair or legends and myths and the nonsense. It is the music, it is that voice, that scuffing indefinable voice. Once that has you in its grip, you can't fall out of love with it: it will not let you.

He can't dance and has no sense of personal rhythm. He has some of the worst dress sense I've ever seen. These days he has a face like a bag of chamois leathers. But God, I adore that man. It's true: a beautiful voice makes most things seem so trivial, and it makes for a real love that lasts for always.