Led Zeppelin frontman Robert Plant discussed covering Townes Van Zandt’s “Nothin'” on 2007’s Raising Sand with Alison Krauss in a new ‘Digging Deep’ podcast, and he called the interpretation of the lyrics of the songs being about Townes being abused ‘stunning.’ Alternative Nation transcribed his remarks. Howard Stern dropped a Led Zeppelin reunion bombshell recently.
Plant: It worked to such a degree that probably within eight days, apart from two or three tracks the album was done.
Co-host: Eight days?
Plant: Mmm-hmm. We didn’t do Gone, Gone, Gone because we did that in Los Angeles and I think a couple of tracks that came after was after Thoughts but it was by and large like falling off a log. Yet, I found myself having to translate, proscribe songs who were like, you know it’s like: ‘what do I do with a Townes Van Zandt song’? and the Gene Clark song on that album called Polly was the very first track of the session. I didn’t know what was gonna sound like in that dog-box with a microphone so I whacked a load of compression on this thing and I’m gonna whisper right into that mic and see where it takes it.
Robert Plant took a funny shot at Kid Rock on this same show. Plant later continues:
Co-host: I was reading about a song and the interpretations [inauible] here but it’s a song about abuse and being trapped but he once said in an interview that he once read The Last Temptation of Christ and was like – actually, there’s a whole mythical framing that you can put on the song as well. If you look at the lyrics, you can see both things.
Plant: Yeah, it’s stunning. It’s a long, long way from pop music, isn’t it?
