{"id":97565,"date":"2025-05-13T08:27:09","date_gmt":"2025-05-13T08:27:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/97565\/"},"modified":"2025-05-13T08:27:09","modified_gmt":"2025-05-13T08:27:09","slug":"the-song-robert-plant-called-bigger-than-god-save-the-queen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/97565\/","title":{"rendered":"The song Robert Plant called bigger than ‘God Save the Queen’"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Robert<\/p>\n

(Credits: Far Out \/ Alamy)<\/p>\n

Cultural trends are often cyclical in nature, particularly within the music industry. Over the years, countless different sounds and genre trends have witnessed resurgences in popularity years or even decades after they first hit the airwaves. What might sound like a bold new era for rock and roll is often just an innovative reimagining of old-school blues, as is the case with hard rock progenitors Led Zeppelin<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Offering an abrasive alternative to the psychedelic era of \u2018peace and love\u2019 hippiedom, Jimmy Page first formed Led Zeppelin back in 1968 and, almost immediately, the group began to blaze an inventive new trail<\/a> for British rock. Armed with a staunch artistic manifesto, endlessly complex riffs, and the infallible tones of frontman Robert Plant, the band quickly became one of the most renowned rock bands on the face of the Earth. As the band itself would admit, however, they owed a great deal of their success to the music of American blues artists. <\/p>\n

All rock and roll roads lead back to the blues. After all, it was the pioneering sounds of early American blues artists like Robert Johnson<\/a> that paved the way for the development of rock and roll back in the 1950s. Led Zeppelin were certainly no different, and Jimmy Page regularly borrowed, interpreted, or stole licks from long-forgotten blues artists throughout the discography of the hard rock giants. <\/p>\n

Still, Led Zeppelin was far from being the only rock group in the 1960s and 1970s to adopt such a practice. Virtually all of the most iconic rock artists from that era \u2013 from The Rolling Stones to Eric Clapton \u2013 were endlessly indebted to the blues. As Robert Plant declared in a 1988 edition of Rolling Stone, \u201cEverybody looks back, glances sideways, peeps over shoulders. It\u2019s like cheating during examinations.\u201d <\/p>\n

Although, as Page shared, virtually every rock artist back in the day was drawing upon the inspiration of the blues, that fact also meant that many artists suspected each other of plagiarism, when they were actually just drawing inspiration from the same source. \u201cJeff Beck and Rod Stewart were out there doing a double act, and we were right behind them,\u201d Page shared. <\/p>\n

The sonic similarities of Led Zeppelin and The Jeff Beck Group didn\u2019t seem to sit right with Beck: \u201cBeck\u2019s always moaned about Pagey: \u2018He knew what we were doing, Rod and I. He got this guy from the Midlands. They were doing \u2018You Shook Me.\u2019\u2019 We were all doing \u2018You Shook Me\u2019 at the same time.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Originally penned by Willie Dixon and Earl Hooker, \u2018You Shook Me\u2019 was first recorded back in 1962 by the legendary blues artist Muddy Waters. The track has been covered by countless artists over the years, but it was The Jeff Beck Group who first gave it the hard rock treatment during the recording sessions for Truth in 1968. The following year, for their debut album, Led Zeppelin recorded a hard rock version of the track too.\u00a0<\/p>\n

For Beck, this appeared to suggest that Zeppelin had ripped off his idea, even if that idea was a cover of another artist from years prior. Page and Plant, however, have always denied stealing Beck\u2019s idea, or even hearing his version of the track. As the Led Zeppelin frontman declared, \u201cIt was more famous than \u2018God Save the Queen\u2019 in England at the time.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Related Topics<\/p>\n

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