In their 12 years of existence, Led Zeppelin released eight studio albums filled with incredible songs written by Robert Plant, Jimmy Page, John Paul Jones, and John Bonham. Tracks like “Stairway to Heaven” and “Whole Lotta Love” are among the band’s biggest hits, but many b-sides remain relatively unknown.
Over the years, Robert Plant has spoken frequently about the songs he wrote with Page and named two tracks that in his opinion are underrated.
The 2 Led Zeppelin songs Robert Plant said are underrated
“For Your Life”
“What were the hits? How can they be related to now, where do they fit? They fit as a sort of memoir… When people say that I don’t like ‘Stairway To Heaven’, I just don’t like the idea of it. These iconic things – they’re just what they are. But you know, most people have missed some of the best Zeppelin stuff. ‘For Your Life’, on Presence (for example).”
“(…) Really, they were pulling so much stuff out of the unknown, Bonham and Jones together on ‘For Your Life’. It’s just insane. And Jimmy, just… (exhales). You know (We played that one in the reunion in 2007), without John, but it came through. It was a good study. The smell of fear on that stage was quite remarkable. Because we’ve been shambolic at times, and great other times. That’s how it should be if you’re taking risks like that,” Robert Plant said in an interview with Mojo.
As Plant said, “For Your Life” was featured on the underrated Led Zeppelin album “Presence”, released in 1976. Curiously, the singer recorded his vocals sitting in a wheelchair, since he was recovering from a car accident. Although he was in that state, the musician once said that he was in a better state than the rest of the band.
Led Zeppelin performed the track at their 2007 reunion show
The track was the fifth one the band played on their reunion in 2007 and Plant later told Mojo that they knew only people who really liked Led Zeppelin would know which song they were playing.They had never played that track live before, and it was not among their most famous songs. Funny enough, many reviews later reported that they had played a new, unreleased song live.
“We thought, “If we can pull it off and put that in most people will probably never know what it was, apart from people who really love Led Zeppelin. And, sure enough, there were a few reviews that said, ‘They did a new song!’ They were obviously referring to ‘For Your Life’. The song came just at the right time. Before that we did ‘In My Time Of Dying’, for heaven’s sake! That’s not messing around either!” Robert Plant said.
“Achilles Last Stand”
“Achilles Last Stand! Fucking hell. Just extraordinary that three people and a singer can do that,” Robert Plant told Mojo. The song mentioned by the singer is also from “Presence”, an album that is not among the most famous ones by the British band. On his podcast “Digging Deep” in 2019, Plant recalled the story behind the recording of that song, which was done during a difficult period.
(Transcribed by Rock and Roll Garage) “With ‘Achilles Last Stand’, the music I was so fortunate to be around. So many amazingly gifted players and if you think about Led Zeppelin as being a trio, really with a kind of wedding singer, stuck up the front. I always saw the reality of what was going on, my enthusiasm was a good contribution but in truth those guys were amazing. I think ‘Achilles Last Stand’ was an uncomfortable time recording the album from which it arrived, which is ‘Presence’. It was a desperate time, I was in a wheelchair for seven months or whatever it was at that time.”
Robert Plant continued:
“But the music was continuing to be developed. Though ‘Presence’ is not always the most comfortable to listen, in the terms like ‘I think I will just settle down with my girlfriend, with a glass of wine and listen to Presence’. You might have to go and stand in the corner for a bit but the interplay. The melody and the musicality of those three guys in that track is insane. It’s absolutely insane, it’s magnificent. So magnificent I had a lady friend who I was playing it and it came on in the house loud. She said: ‘I don’t wanna be left in a room with this on my own’. Because it’s so intense, it’s brilliant.”
“So what I was going to do? I was lying horizontal in bed in a continental house in L.A., it was Halloween 1975. I was in a room on my own in this dodgy old hotel while the world was playing high jinks outside. The whole place was going in totally different to me and my bad leg and my bad arm. So I started writing about freedom and escape.”
He continued:
“The whole thing, the preparation, throughout the song is to be gone to a place which is a reward aesthetically in beauty, space, air. It was basically about the Atlas Mountains, about going back to Morocco. ‘Where the arms of Atlas hold the heavens from the earth’ is not a Yes song (laughs). It’s not something from ‘Tales of Topographic Oceans’.”
“But I was so desperate to get away from that. Being trapped in that environment to hop off the bad and have somebody to push me around. I was saying ‘Let’s get out of here!’. I rather be on the side of the mountains in Oregon or Morocco than be in the riot house. Mostly, wherever I am, even now, all these years later, I really wanna be there or its equivalent. So it’s about, lyrically I suppose, about the dynamic of the life that I lead. What we all put ourselves through as entertainers, musicians and writers. The panacea, the cure, the fix, which is what actually ‘Achilles Last Stand’ is all about really.” Robert Plant said.
Although it might not be among the fans favorites, “Presence” was an important record for Robert Plant and according to him for Led Zeppelin too. When promoting the album at the time he said it was their “phoenix” since there was a lot of uncertainty about the future of the band at the time because of his injury.
Like all the band’s albums, Presence was also produced by founder and guitarist Jimmy Page. Other songs on the record include “Nobody’s Fault But Mine” and “Candy Store Rock.” The album peaked at number 1 on both the United Kingdom charts and the United States Billboard 200.