Robert Plant Called Out Jimmy Page and Led Zeppelin’s Manager on 1 Song
Despite their name, Led Zeppelin flew high for a good chunk of the 1970s. A string of hit songs and legendary concerts in front of thousands of ravenous fans made them one of the biggest bands on earth. Yet a tumultuous period put the band in a dark place. Singer Robert Plant called out guitarist Jimmy Page and Led Zeppelin’s manager on one song from Presence.
Robert Plant suffered a serious injury before Led Zeppelin made ‘Presence’
Led Zeppelin was flying high after releasing Physical Graffiti in 1975. The double album included some of Zep’s most ambitious songs to date. The double LP album was one of the band’s most successful in terms of sales.
But the good times couldn’t last, and the bad mojo emerged ahead of the Presence sessions.
A car accident on vacation left Plant and his wife in serious condition. Doctors questioned whether the singer would walk again. He was confined to a wheelchair as Led Zeppelin recorded Presence. His children suffered injuries, but they weren’t as severe as those of their parents, Grunge writes.
Since Led Zeppelin was so successful in 1975, the band members exiled themselves from England rather than pay crippling taxes. That didn’t sit well with Plant, who was forced to leave his family in England to record Presence in California. John Paul Jones, who had previously considered quitting Led Zeppelin, and John Bonham weren’t thrilled to leave their families to make the album.
The Presence sessions had a lot of raw emotion surrounding them, and Plant called out Page and Led Zeppelin’s manager in his lyrics to one song.
Plant viciously called out Jimmy Page and Led Zeppelin’s manager on ‘Hots on for Nowhere’
Don’t be thrown off by the bouncy la-la-las of the chorus — Robert Plant provided a savage takedown on “Hots on for Nowhere.” His lyrics were often fairly straightforward. It’s not hard to read between the lines of the first chorus and hear Plant calling out Page and Led Zeppelin manager Peter Grant for putting him back to work shortly after his accident.
“I was burned in the heat of the moment / No, it coulda been the heat of the day / When I learned how my time has been wasted / Dear fellows I turned away,” Plant sings at the beginning of the song.
The heat of the moment would be the crash, and the heat of the day refers to the Greek island of Rhodes, where the crash happened. The singer’s wasted time is the hard work he put in on Zep’s first six albums and the constant touring that led to financial success but took him away from his family.
The rest of the first chorus is even more direct: “Now I’ve got friends who will give me their shoulder / When I should happen to fall,” Plant sings, before adding, “I’ve got friends who will give me f*** all.”
Plant once called Presence a cry from the depths. The singer called out Page and Grant on “Hots on for Nowhere.” Recording the album took Page and his wheelchair halfway around the world, but his family remained in England. “I was furious with them,” the singer said of Page and Grant, according to Centennial Media’s Legends of Music Spotlight: Led Zeppelin, and he didn’t mince words. Plant called out Page and Led Zeppelin’s manager in very plain language.
Where ‘Presence’ ranks among Led Zeppelin’s albums
Presence doesn’t come close to ranking among Led Zeppelin’s best-selling albums. Still, time has been kind to the 1976 release.
Songs such as “Achilles Last Stand” and “Nobody’s Fault But Mine” are some of Zep’s heaviest songs. “Achilles” is a tour-de-force with all four band members firing on all cylinders. Presence is a challenging listen. Still, die-hard fans rank it highly among Led Zeppelin’s albums and surprise Page with their love for it.
Led Zeppelin continued as a band until 1980. With hindsight, we can see how Robert Plant savagely calling out Jimmy Page and Peter Grant might have been the start of the end for one of the greatest bands of all time.
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