The Song Still Remains The Same: the unauthorized etymology of Led Zeppelin songs. Bring It On Home

Bring It On Home - Led Zeppelin

Bring It On Home - Sonny Boy Williamson

We are back (after a long hiatus) with our fourth installment of The Song Still Remains The Same: the unauthorized etymology of Led Zeppelin songs. You know, that little thing I do where I look at a song Led Zeppelin claims to have written, and then play you the original song...that they didn't write.

We started with Dazed and Confused. 
Then we looked at Whole Lotta Love.
Then we analyzed Since I've Been Lovin' You.

Today, we look at Bring It On Home.

The last song on the October 1969 release of Led Zeppelin II is a song called Bring It On Home. As you can see from the above label scan, it is a song that Jimmy Page and Robert Plant have claimed to have written. The song is a laid back blues shuffle with Robert Plant's trademark billy-goat styled vocal delivery. Plant pleads with his lover:

Bbbbaaaaabbbbbwwwaaaayyyyy. Well,  Bbbbaaaaabbbbbwwwwaaaayyyyy, I'm going to bring it on home to you. I've got my ticket, I got that load. Join up, going higher, all aboard. I'm going to take my seat, railway bag. Ooh-ch'yeah. Watch this train roll down the track. I'm going bring it on home, break it on down now to you.

Ahhh, you can hear Robert Plant's native Mississippi accent as he drawl's out his pained lyrics.

Whoa. Wait. No. That's not right. Robert Plant isn't from Mississippi, he's from the UK. And Jimmy Page wasn't an itinerant sharecropper who made his way to Chicago after World War II. How did I mess this up? Oh yeah, Jimmy Page and Robert Plant didn't write the damn blues song! They stole it.

Sonny Boy Williamson (II) recorded the Willie Dixon penned song, Bring It On Home, in January of 1963 at Chess Studios in Chicago. However, the number wasn't released on Chess Records until February of 1966, shortly after Sonny Boy Williamson's death in Helena, Arkansas in 1965.

It's undeniable that it is the same song. Lawyers for Atlantic Records agreed and settled out of court for an undisclosed sum in 1972. Subsequent pressings of the record show Willie Dixon as the composer. Only one person seems to still believe it is a different song:

The thing with Bring It On Home, there's only a tiny bit taken from Sonny Boy Williamson's version and we threw that in as a tribute to him. People say, "Oh, Bring It On Home is stolen." Well, there's only a little bit in the song that relates to anything that had gone before it. Just the end.
--Jimmy Page as interviewed by Dave Schulps, Trouser Press, October, 1977. 

Well, to that, I just have to say...Huh? Just a little bit? It's the same frickin' song, Jimmy. It's not just taking the shuffle, it's not just lifting a lyric or two. It's not just that it's the same title. You even have Robert Plant even imitates Sonny Boy Williamson! It's the same thing Led Zeppelin did when Robert mimicked The Small Faces' Steve Marriott with Whole Lotta Love (aka, You Need Lovin').  You make call it an homage, Misters Plant and Page, but it's not. It's standing on the shoulders of others and pushing them down in the mud. Not OK lads.

And yes, I understand that Sonny Boy Williamson tended to steal stuff too...like another person's entire identity! But we are dealing with just one deviancy at a time here.

Listen for yourself. Let us know what you think. Until next time, we'll see you On The Flip-Side!

The Song Still Remains the Same: the unauthorized etymology of Led Zeppelin songs. "Whole Lotta Love"

Led Zeppelin, Whole Lotta Love

Small Faces, You Need Lovin'

We return today for Chapter 2 of the The Song Still Remains the Same: The unauthorized etymology of Led Zeppelin songs. Frequent readers will recall our post a few weeks back where we explored the etymology of Dazed and Confused. Take a look at that post for an over-arching introduction to the series.

Today we explore the roots of Led Zeppelin's monster of a song, Whole Lotta Love. Whole Lotta Love is perhaps Led Zeppelin's second most recognized song behind only the anthemic Stairway to Heaven. Whole Lotta Love was originally released in October of 1969 as the first song on Zep's roller-coaster-of-quality Led Zeppelin II and as that album's first single (US 45-2690). The song is credited to each of the band's members. But, as you may have guessed by now, Whole Lotta Love is not wholly original. The song started as a Willie Dixon composition entitled You Need Love as recorded by blues giant, Muddy Waters for Chess Records in 1962.

A few years later a young Mod group out of London began covering the number on stage. That group was The Small Faces which featured singer and guitarist Steve Marriott front and center. In February of 1966, the Small Faces entered IBC Studios to record the number for their debut album, The Small Faces. While the title changed ever so slightly, the music changed and some of the lyrics changed, at it's heart it was clearly the Muddy Waters song You Need Love. However, the Small Faces failed to give Dixon his due credit, instead giving writing credit to Marriott and bassist Ronnie Lane.

It was fantastic, I loved it, Muddy Waters recorded it but I couldn't sing like Muddy Waters so it wasn't that much of a nick. I was a high range and Muddy was a low range so I had to figure out how to sing it. So I did and that was our opening number for all the years we were together. Every time we were on stage that was our opening number. (All Too Beautiful, Steve Marriott. p78).

Then, in a story eerily reminiscent of the introduction of Dazed and Confused into the Led Zeppelin set list, The Small Faces opened for The Yardbirds which presently sported Jimmy Page on guitar. Page caught the opening act and focused in on the Small Faces opening number.

We did a gig with The Yardbirds....Jimmy Page asked what that number was we did. "You Need Lovin'," I said, "it's a Muddy Waters thing", which it really is. (The Small Faces: Young Mods Forgotten Story, Paolo Hewitt).

But the story doesn't stop there. In 1968, Jimmy Page, now holding onto the tattered flag that had been The Yardbirds, approached John Entwhistle and Keith Moon of The Who and Steve Marriott of the Small Faces with a proposition of forming a new band. Moon responded that the proposed band was doomed to go over like a Led Zeppelin. Marriott also had rather harsh rejection words, according to Jimmy Page:

It came down to Marriott. He was contacted, and the reply came back from his manager's office: "how would you like to have a group with no fingers, boys?" or words to that effect. So the group was dropped because of Marriott's other commitment, to the Small Faces. (1977 Jimmy Page interview, Modern Guitar Magazine. Steven Rosen).

But Marriott had a suggestion for another singer. A young mod from Halesowen, England named Robert "Percy" Plant.

Percy used to come to the gigs whenever we played in Kidderminster or Stowbridge, where he came from. He was always saying he was going to get this group together. He was another nuisance. He kept coming into the dressing room, just another little Mod kid. We used to say, "that kid's here again." (The Small Faces: Young Mods Forgotten Story, Paolo Hewitt).

So now Page had his big throated singer in young Robert Plant whose voice bears more than a passing similarity to that of Steve Marriott.

And now, finally, we can turn our focus to Led Zeppelin's Whole Lotta Love. The music of the song bears only the faintest resemblance to the Small Faces You Need Lovin' or Muddy Waters' You Need Love. Lyrically, however, the song is very similar to those earlier versions. It is in fact, the song. But more than that, the vocal delivery is a clear and blatant imitation of that of Steve Marriott's portrayal of You Need Lovin': "A-woman, a choooo need, love."

After we broke up they [Led Zeppelin] took it and revamped it...old Percy had his eyes on it. He sang it the same, phrased it the same, even the stops at the end were the same, they just put a different rhythm to it. For years and years I would hear it come on the radio while driving in America, and I would think, "Go on, my son," until one day I thought, "fucking hell, that's us, that is." The bastards!" (ibid)

It's an imitation so blatant that one can't help but smile wryly when you hear it. In the end Led Zeppelin may have successfully wrested the song away from The Small Faces, but they didn't get it away from the original author of the song. Willie Dixon wasn't going to let the matter rest so easily. According to author Will Shade, the October 8 edition of the Los Angeles Times reported that in 1985, Dixon sued Led Zeppelin for royalties and then settled out of court "with a generous settlement to Willie Dixon" who now shares writing credit on all modern printings of the song.

Willie Dixon died of heart failure in 1992. Steve Marriott died in 1991, the victim of a house fire.

Enjoy. We'll see you soon for more of The Song Still Remains The Same, the unauthorized etymology of Led Zeppelin Songs here on the flip-side.