Credit: Far Out / Led Zeppelin
Wed 19 August 2026 22:31, UK
In the unlikely event that Led Zeppelin were ever to return to live performance, their setlists would have to be the size of bath towels if they were to play every fan-favourite, rock classic, or innovative masterpiece they ever struck upon. There are a few tracks, however, that would be forever omitted, were it up to Robert Plant.
In hindsight, it is easy to pick out the highs and lows of the hard rock harbingers; where they went wrong, where they went right, and why they are still such an essential group in the history of rock and roll. At the time, though, none of that was quite so obvious. There had never been a band like Led Zeppelin before, and so there was no blueprint or accepted lineage for the band to follow.
They were, for the most part, making things up as they went along, and that spontaneity drove some of their greatest masterpieces. It is hard to imagine another established band during that time creating a song like ‘Achilles Last Stand’, for instance. On the flip side of that argument, though, their trailblazing quality also meant that the group carved out some efforts which, in the light of modernity, pale in comparison to their other material.
While Jimmy Page was already sitting on a decade’s worth of experience as a session musician and a core part of The Yardbirds, Robert Plant was still relatively new to the music industry, and it was only when Led Zeppelin had begun to reach their dizzying heights that he began to dip his toes into the world of songwriting. Of course, nobody creates a masterpiece on their first attempt, but Plant soon grew to resent some of his earlier contributions.
“You’ve got to live with them, so it’s a very personal thing,” he shared in a 1976 interview with Chris Charlesworth, “I did some of the lyrics on ‘Whole Lotta Love’ and some of the broader things like ‘Ramble On’, but it wasn’t until later that I really worked hard on them.” Inevitably, then, ‘Whole Lotta Love’ could hardly be considered among Plant’s favourite Zeppelin tracks.
A scourge on guitar store employees across the land, that 1969 track was built around a simplistic guitar riff and a few pretty superfluous lyrics provided by Plant. It isn’t in the same league as the band’s more ambitious material, and its commercialised sound can be summed up by the fact that it was among the very few Zeppelin songs to be released as a single during its day, whereupon it reached number four in the US.
Plant himself soon became aware of the fact that ‘Whole Lotta Love’ doesn’t stand tall among the rest of Led Zeppelin’s discography, so much so that the group routinely omitted the track from their later setlists, despite its popularity. “I think that songs, like ‘Kashmir’ and ‘Stairway [To Heaven]’ are far more relevant to the band now than songs like ‘Whole Lotta Love’ which we don’t really do now anyway,” the frontman shared.
Further reading: From The Vault
It is difficult to disagree with the fact that ‘Kashmir’ and ‘Stairway To Heaven’ are better songs than ‘Whole Lotta Love’ on virtually every level; not only are they technically much more engaging and innovative, but they also do a better job of encapsulating the iconic sound of Led Zeppelin.
Nevertheless, the band did perform the track during their landmark 1979 shows at Knebworth, and much more recently during their brief 2007 reunion at the O2 Arena, so perhaps Plant’s view of the song has softened in the years since he gave that interview in 1976.
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