+1Originally Posted by notallwhowander
+1
"The White Zone is for loading and unloading only. If you got to load or unload go to the White Zone!"
Though few of us will ever sing as high as Plant, or get as high as Page, or be as big a bully as Grant, I suppose if you want to learn about and understand Led Zeppelin, there is a way.
Zepparella Launch Led Zeppelin Learning Channel
If the arsonist ending is what they were going for then one of the greatest songs ever is a failure, lol. But who really knows what they were thinking. Maybe, despite the initial inspiration, it turned into something else (musically) so they thought it would be funny to juxtapose the rather sinister and mean-spirited revenge blaze with more light-hearted music.
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"Norwegian Wood" is one of Led Zeppelin's finest songs ever.
Led Zeppelin stole "Norwegian Wood" from Willie Dixon.
"And your little sister's immaculate virginity wings away on the bony shoulders of a young horse named George who stole surreptitiously into her geography revision."
Occasional musical musings on https://darkelffile.blogspot.com/
Yeah, but they only did it to get a little violence into their repertoire. The sinister element sells.
Norwegian Wood / Kashmir
"The White Zone is for loading and unloading only. If you got to load or unload go to the White Zone!"
The Doors is a band I could never get behind. I suspect that will have little or no impact on their legacy. I don't begrudge those that like them though.
Oh, I suppose I do like a few of their tunes. But songs like Love Her Madly or Touch Me or Love Me Two Times are "B league" '60s rock IMO. I doubt there's anything anyone could say to me to convince me otherwise.
But... what was left for Phil Collins to ruin??
Answer: EVERYTHING!
Wake up to find out that you are the eyes of the world.
And here all this time I thought the guy in Norwegian Wood simply lit a joint and smoked it after being stood up (I lit a fire, isn't it good "Norwegian Wood").. oh well lyrics are life..
I don't think John gets his end away. McCartney interprets the bath lyric as Lennon being sent to sleep in the bath but I read that as a voluntary act. She's hinting that he's not actually going to get any nookie anyway, so he takes the huff.
I heard somewhere that 'lit a fire' refers to the breaking-up of his marriage.
The Beatles invented Willie Dixon.
Cobra handling and cocaine use are a bad mix.
Thanks for blowing my mind. Growing up my first love was the Beatles so I'm a little familiar with their output but somehow the last lines of NW never registered with me. Damn, that's crazy and i'm a little stunned at the moment. That's pretty damned dark.
Carry On My Blood-Ejaculating Son - JKL2000
I don't think it would qualify as misogyny anyway. Assuming the stories surrounding the original inspiration are true and (for the sake of argument) that inspiration is somehow actually codified into the lyrics, it's only about a specific situation involving one particular woman and doesn't generalize toward an entire group.
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Correct. Plant, on the other hand, follows the V/W script almost continuously. Yeah, it's a classic blues thing, yadda yadda, but I don't have to like it.
Cobra handling and cocaine use are a bad mix.
Well, congrats on the 5 pages of responses anyway, though I don't think you thought anyone could change your mind. I don't think anybody else did either. You'll have more fun listening to music you like.
He didn't ask for is mind to be changed, he asked for understanding.
I don't hear the virgin/whore thing going on in Plant's lyrics. I don't think he ever extols a woman for her purity or virginity, at least not while fronting Led Zeppelin.
Even in 'Stairway to Heaven' (inspired on some level by Robert Graves' The White Goddess), the woman is powerful and wise, offering revelation, but there isn't anything said about her virginity.
Wake up to find out that you are the eyes of the world.
Ummm, it's the lyrics I say I don't have to like. I'm going after the music here. I want to find my way into it.
Cobra handling and cocaine use are a bad mix.
Agreed that there's nothing specifically sexual about it, but how is the woman who "is buying a stairway to heaven" "wise"? Powerful, I get, but the impression I get is of a selfish woman who thinks she's entitled ("if the stores all are closed/with a word she can get what she came for"). I really don't get where you're coming from here.
Cobra handling and cocaine use are a bad mix.
^^ I guess if you're really parsing the lyrics, then you probably don't like Deep Purple.... or, Whitesnake!
Last edited by Guitarplyrjvb; 02-20-2019 at 05:11 PM.
Mmmhh!!!... to me, it's clearly an allusion to the "catholic" indulgence... Buying yourself a stairway to heaven is giving the church lotsa money to buy yourself heaven access before death after a life conduct without any consideration for others, hence the really rich person getting to open a store for her only.
my music collection increased tenfolds when I switched from drug-addicts to complete nutcases.
I will contextualize. It was in my undergraduate Ancient Greek Religion & Festivals course where the professor mentioned Robert Graves' The White Goddess. We were discussing matriarchy at the time. While he admitted that The White Goddess had little academic value, he did mention that Robert Plant was reading it while writing "Stairway to Heaven" as to assign it some cultural value. Since then, I've been thinking of the lyrics through that lens, though it may not be, in fact, all that warranted.
Still because of this, I read the lyrics as a kind of neo-pagan paean to a pseudo-Celtic goddess. I don't know that it parses all that well, but then the lyrics are more along the Jon Anderson vein of being more connotative, serving the feeling and emotions of the music, than being clearly denotative and delivering a clear message. So sure, there is an implication of an aristocratic entitlement, she can get what she wants when she wants it, she can buy the stairway to heaven with her wealth. But then, to her, everything is gold. She has unlimited wealth. She can show us this to, if we listen very hard, transcend dualities, etc.
The whole thing has a throughline of mystic sense, but then I could just be making it up. I thought I had a grasp on "Norwegian Wood" after all, but after this thread not so much.
Wake up to find out that you are the eyes of the world.
You don't have to turn off your mind and rock out, but you may have to put it in the back seat for a bit. Think of it this way: your analytical mind is like Jimmy Page's guitar in "Rock and Roll" way back behind the beat, your viscera and lizard brain are up front with Bonham, and your ass and legs are with John Paul Jones. Let the feeling flow out first.
Have your analytical mind engage with the rhythm section first, figure out what they are doing, and then how everything else locks in around it, including the leads and vocals.
Wake up to find out that you are the eyes of the world.
Bit unfair, some of Purple's lyrics are pretty clever, particularly on 'Fireball' and 'Who Do We Think We Are'. Less so when Coverdale took over, and the less said about Whitesnake the better! Good live band in their day though...^^ I guess if you're really parsing the lyrics, then you probably don't like Deep Purple.... or, Whitesnake!
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