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Robert Plant appears on the Stephen Colbert show<\/p>\n Robert Plant appears on the Stephen Colbert show<\/p>\n
Led Zeppelin legend Robert Plant has long had links with Wales \u2013 from recording here and living here.<\/p>\n
When it comes to Cymru, the rock legend most definitely wears his heart on his sleeve.<\/p>\n
Appearing on US chat show The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, the rock star revealed how the history and mystique of Wales had administered a profound effect on his songwriting over the years \u2013 via the fantastical writings of The Lord Of The Rings author J R. R. Tolkien<\/p>\n
During his years with the all-conquering rock juggernaut Plant had referenced Tolkien\u2019s work in a number of Zeppelin songs including 1969\u2019s Ramble On (\u2018Twas in the darkest depths of Mordor \/ I met a girl so fair \/ But Gollum and the evil one \/ Crept up and slipped away with her\u2019) and 1971\u2019s Misty Mountain Hop (\u2018So I\u2019m packing my bags for the Misty Mountains\u2019).<\/p>\n
It appears it was the rocker\u2019s mum and dad who were partly responsible for his love of Tolkien\u2019s books \u2013 and his ongoing fascination with Cymru.<\/p>\n
\u201cI blame my mum and dad,\u201d he laughed. \u201cThere\u2019s some sort of melding there.\u201d<\/p>\n
Plant joked with Colbert that he was a member of the \u2018inklings\u2019, the famed group of renowned British writers including Tolkien and C.S. Lewis that used to frequent pubs in Oxford together in the 1930s and 40s, before acknowledging that his Led Zeppelin bandmates were clueless to the fact he was making references to The Lord Of The Rings and The Hobbit via his lyrics.<\/p>\n
\u201cTolkien was a master,\u201d Plant said. \u201cHe opened the door to all that, sort of \u2018dark age\u2019 meander of history.\u201d<\/p>\n
The musician revealed that Tolkien\u2019s upbringing in the West Midlands, alongside the author\u2019s love of Welsh culture, struck a chord with the young Plant growing up. The musician spent much of his youth in the West Midlands having grown up in Worcestershire, while he has since spent time living in Wales and currently lives just a few miles from the Welsh border.<\/p>\n
It is well known that Tolkien\u2019s creation of fictional Elvish language that coloured his Middle Earth books were absed on Welsh language structures, while the inspirational, rolling Welsh landscapes and mythological side of its history was also had a defining influence.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\u201cIt spoke to me because his points of reference were very close to where I live,\u201d said Plant. \u201cVery close to where my parents, unwittingly, used to take me<\/a>, through this landscape, where you began from another culture that\u2019s still around, [to a place where] you can read what the landscape gave you from the old times, before there were highways and stuff like that. So it becomes quite evocative, and I think Tolkien had it down.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s been so remarkable that you can have a culture that\u2019s shunted into the west side of Britain that has absolutely nothing to do with the English at all,\u201d he continues. \u201cThe Welsh are British. And so the mix of all the legend and the space-shifting and all that stuff, it\u2019s there, it\u2019s 15 miles from where I live<\/a>. You can feel it all.\u201d<\/p>\n Robert Plant has recently released his new album, Saving Grace to positive reviews.<\/p>\n