(Credits: Far Out / Led Zeppelin / Album Cover / Mark Seliger / Elvis Costello)
Within the realm of rock and roll, Led Zeppelin are a seemingly untouchable drive; if you’re a songwriter with out Led Zeppelin III in your assortment, you’re seemed upon with a sure diploma of suspicion from the hordes of rock elitists. Not, because it seems, that it has ever nervous Elvis Costello very a lot.
Costello has at all times drawn from a very wide pool of influences, stretching from the pioneering reggae rhythms of Jimmy Cliff to the punk politics of Joe Strummer. Seemingly, although, that pool of influences doesn’t embody Led Zeppelin, even in spite of the truth that the thick-rimmed, indignant younger man was the precise goal age group and (let’s be sincere) gender for Zeppelin’s exhausting rock revolution. Then once more, he has by no means been one to mindlessly observe traits.
Strangely sufficient, Costello’s appreciation, or lack thereof, for Jimmy Page’s outfit arose throughout a 1989 chat with Rolling Stone when he was requested whether or not he had any love for Guns N’ Roses. “Yes, I do,” he retorted. “But I like Donald Duck as well. They’re both cartoons, aren’t they?”
A fittingly chopping put-down from the songwriter, although he did go on so as to add, “I don’t mean to put Guns ‘n’ Roses down. Heaven knows I think they’re really dedicated, and I like that ‘Sweet Child o’ Mine’ record – the one that sounds like Led Zeppelin.” Being in comparison with Led Zeppelin is usually the head of rock and roll compliments, given simply how impactful the group have been again within the Seventies. In this case, although, Costello wasn’t being all that complimentary.
“I think it sounds less pompous than Led Zeppelin doing it,” he admitted, both in an try to provide Axl Rose some credit score or tear down Led Zeppelin even additional. “But I didn’t like Led Zeppelin to begin with, so you’re asking the wrong guy.”
How can that be, chances are you’ll be questioning, that any individual with as wealthy rock and roll credentials as Elvis Costello might dislike a band as vital in British rock historical past as Led Zeppelin? Luckily, the songwriter quickly defined that his allegiances lie elsewhere: “I like Howlin’ Wolf. I like the stuff Zeppelin stole from. I don’t need to hear a facsimile of a facsimile of a facsimile.”
Again, it’s the form of barbed remark that many individuals have come to anticipate from Costello through the years, nevertheless it isn’t completely with out advantage, both. Even Jimmy Page himself wouldn’t deny that his guitar taking part in, together with the foundation sound of Zeppelin, is closely indebted to the pioneering blues stylings of figures like Howlin’ Wolf – nor would The Rolling Stones, Jimi Hendrix, Cream, or any quantity of the opposite rock icons spawned from his blues sound.
A key instance of that affect arrived throughout the early days of the band, once they re-arranged Wolf’s ‘Killing Floor’ into ‘The Lemon Song’, making their influences recognized early doorways and making no try to cover their adoration of the blues legend. To be honest to Costello, although, Led Zeppelin have actually attracted more plagiarism claims and, in some instances, lawsuits than different appreciators of the blues.
Either manner, Costello’s declare that he wanted “to hear a facsimile of a facsimile of a facsimile” may very well be accused of being just a little reductive. After all, nearly all rock and roll inevitably leads again to the blues, however over the many years, it has been tailored and rearranged into one thing barely totally different, and thus, the musical realm has progressed.
It isn’t as if Elvis Costello himself has pulled each one of his multitude of songs fully from the ether, with out being influenced or impressed by the musicians who got here earlier than him. Then once more, he has actually boasted extra in the best way of originality than Guns N’ Roses over the course of his profession.
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