A song they ripped off anyway

?

There are some chord progressions and stuff where they took inspiration from other artists, and they've been reluctant to admit it as it could entail giving up songwriting credit for a song they obviously made themselves.

It's a stupid byproduct of how the music industry has fucked up music. It was always based on borrowing and reimagening the music of others, especially the folk and blues traditions Zeppelin found themselves in.

Guthrie's copyright notice is one of the few respectable ones:

This song is Copyrighted in U.S., under Seal of Copyright # 154085, for a period of 28 years, and anybody caught singin it without our permission, will be mighty good friends of ourn, cause we don't give a dern. Publish it. Write it. Sing it. Swing to it. Yodel it. We wrote it, that's all we wanted to do.

Here's a BBC article about the Stairway copyright dispute. And here's the song in question, with the allegedly stolen part starting around 0:45. It's likely that Zeppelin took inspiration, but also it's a completely different and way less interesting piece of music. Great example of how copyright is used to kill art and creativity rather than to protect it.

Thanks for the overview! Very interesting!

I share the opinion that music, as pretty much all human endeavors, are build upon what came before. Making that a crime just leads to stagnation.

Nooo don't do it

At most you could say this about the 30 second intro to this 8 minute masterpiece. Personally I don't buy it.

They have plenty of other blues songs they actually didn't give original artists credit for.

What a weird trailer, is it like going to be Doctor Who + Narnia prequel? I'm so confused.

Its cool how the band who stole all their best songs are so protective of the IP that they stole

30 second intro

Which is repeated in the verses. Its also not like the intro is some insignificant or simplistic little ditty, it's iconic. And its lifted directly from that Spirit track.

But very true about the blues, once you start getting into delta blues music you basically dont need to listen to Led Zep ever again, all their best songs are like 90% of some old blues tune that's usually edgier, heavier, and performed by one person.

Led Zeppelin are criminally overrated

I don't support the way they took credit for a lot of those songs and such. But I dunno about criminally overrated. I still consider them one of if not the greatest classic rock bands of all time.

I def know a lot of people whose musical opinion I respect agree with you. I usually dont bring it up. I'm a lifelong musician and am surrounded by many lifelong musicians and my opinion is in the minority.

But to me they're the band that got me into listening to classic rock, Houses of the Holy was an early influence, but over time I've just gotten less and less impressed with them. Part of that might be the sort of disdain I have for the music industry, as the bands who made it at the time weren't necessarily the best but were the ones best equipped to play the game with access to industry connections in a hyper-commercialized, post-Woodstock milieu.

It just irks me to no end, that a huge portion of their catalog is basically straight copied from black USAmerican artists who played the songs better, who didn't get credit or compensation. At the same time, when theyre paying tribute to artists, like Leadbelly in their rendition of Gallis Pole, it's almost unlistenable and wanky, whereas the og version is basically unplayable for all but like one guy who learned to play it from Heddy himself. They just ripped off other people, got incredibly famous and wealthy, while artists who were more original and more talented, like Rory Gallagher and Peter Green, got passed over, and maybe this is stressing the point too much, for not being total whores.

The whole fish (CW)

I totally accept that it's an unpopular opinion. But there's so much better music out there, I dont really miss them.

All fairly said. It's tough to deal with the cognitive dissonance for me, but I can't change how they're a part of how music is wired in my brain.

It’s objectively ripped off. I don’t really care if you don’t buy it. Who are you?

I'm me. We're here commenting together to have a discussion. Nice to meet you.

It's not really objective.

I don’t agree with you and nothing will change that so there is nothing to discuss. Bye.

Um, thanks for ... sharing?