BBC Radio 4\u2019s Desert Island Disc<\/a>s – the long-running series where guests pick eight songs they\u2019d want with them if stranded on a desert island – Plant selected a variety of tracks that he felt reflected key moments in his life. But when pressed to choose just one song he’d rush to save from the waves if they were threatened by the water, he chose to \u201cdefinitely\u201d keep Mario Lanza\u2019s \u2018Serenade\u2019.<\/p>\nThe ‘Stairway to Heaven’ singer added: \u201cBecause it\u2019s so evocative and it carries so much presence and beauty and it just lifts \u2014 the crescendos there are.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI mean, imagine singing along with that until you got it right,\u201d Plant gushed.<\/p>\n
‘Serenade’ is the title track from the 1956 film of the same name, which follows Damon Vincenti – a humble vineyard worker who becomes a world-famous operatic tenor, entangled in romantic drama between a Mexican bullfighter\u2019s daughter and a high-society patron.<\/p>\n
The film is heavily melodramatic and features operatic music performed by Mario Lanza.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen I was invited to do this programme, I started looking at something that I would say wouldn\u2019t be the runaway train,\u201d he explained. \u201cIt would be something that made me just stop and feel the goosebumps. And this was the first song that did that to me.\u201d<\/p>\n
As for the other seven songs on his list, they spanned rock, blues, ska, Indian cinema, Malian desert blues and even a track from his own collaboration with Alison Krauss.<\/p>\n
He picked Eddie Cochran\u2019s rockabilly anthem ‘Pink Peg Slacks’, the blues of Howlin\u2019 Wolf\u2019s ‘I Ain\u2019t Superstitious’, and the infectious energy of Baba Brooks\u2019 ‘Teenage Ska’.<\/p>\n
He also included Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young\u2019s protest classic ‘Ohio’, and from the world of Indian cinema, he chose Mohammed Rafi\u2019s ‘Raha Gardishon Main Hardam’. Then came ‘Diaraby’, the collaboration between Malian guitarist Ali Farka Tour\u00e9 and Ry Cooder, and finally one of his own tracks – recorded with Alison Krauss -, ‘Your Long Journey’.<\/p>\n
For reading material, Plant chose The Penguin Book of Earliest English (Anglo-Saxon) Poetry and Verse, saying: \u201cThese magnificent riddles that you would have to try and fathom out. If I\u2019m going to have a lot of time, I\u2019m going to make some notes in the sand as to what I think it is.\u201d<\/p>\n
And his luxury item was \u201ca beautiful wicker basket with three pairs of Black Country homing pigeons,\u201d to keep as companions and, if necessary, couriers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When you think Led Zeppelin, you probably don\u2019t immediately picture emotional, operatic, slow cinematic scores. Yet a musical…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":88314,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3936],"tags":[16209,77,21945,42073,269,16208,30129,42074,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-88313","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-desert-island-discs","9":"tag-entertainment","10":"tag-led-zeppelin","11":"tag-mario-lanza","12":"tag-music","13":"tag-music-section","14":"tag-robert-plant","15":"tag-serenade","16":"tag-uk","17":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114479868820802526","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88313","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=88313"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88313\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/88314"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=88313"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=88313"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=88313"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}