(Credits: Sony Pictures Classics)
Sun 18 May 2025 10:00, UK
Not only did the story of Led Zeppelin end with tragedy, but it ended with finality. This may sound silly on the surface. You don’t really get much more final than the tragic passing of a band member, and the death of John Bonham absolutely shattered the group at their core—except, as a number of the peers surrounding the biggest hard rock band of all time proved, that this is absolutely not the case.
The Who continued after losing half their classic line-up; AC/DC only became Led Zeppelin’s closest contender to the title of “biggest hard rock band of all time” after not only losing a band member but also their singer to boot. However, more than most bands of their time, Led Zeppelin was a band bigger than the sum of their parts.
While the majority of their songs are Jimmy Page and Robert Plant compositions (when they weren’t ripping off bluesmen of the 1950s, natch), the arrangements always came from the band as a whole. Bassist John Paul Jones and Bonham were as important to the band’s sound as anyone else, and it just wouldn’t work without them. So, naturally, the moment they lost one of them, the band was done.
You wouldn’t know it listening to their final single as an active band, ‘Fool in the Rain’, though. The song was recorded in 1978, when the band’s personal lives were at their worst. Page and Bonham were totally at the mercy of their addictions, with Robert Plant reeling the worst of all of them after losing his five-year-old son the previous year. Despite this, the song is an absolute joy on the surface.
What inspired the Led Zeppelin song ‘Fool in the Rain’?
Its driving, skipping beat comes from an unlikely source. Jones and Plant had spent the summer of 1978 watching that year’s FIFA World Cup, airing from Argentina. During the coverage, they’d heard a samba song that completely captured their imagination. In his book Led Zeppelin: From a Whisper to a Scream—Complete Guide to Their Music, Dave Lewis wrote how that track influenced the song.
He says, “The idea emerged to layer on their own samba halfway through the hop-skip riff arrangement. Crazed as it sounds, it works beautifully right through [Jones’] street whistles to Bonzo’s delightfully constructed timpani crashes.” Yet, despite the joyous backing, perhaps matching the sorrow surrounding the band’s personal life, the lyrics are quite devastating.
In the song, Plant plays a lovestruck guy waiting to meet his special someone. And waiting. And waiting. “Why can’t I see you tonight?!” he wails as he fears he’s been strung along by that someone. Over the course of the song, the weather turns and he clocks himself, standing alone, a mere “fool in the rain”. He gives himself another ten minutes, then he goes home. He swears.
Then he realises, “I’m just a fool waiting on the wrong block”. Good to know that even at a time of such personal hardship for the band, they could still find it in them to see the light through the darkness and make a joke along the way.
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