The Led Zeppelin song that became Nancy Wilson’s “blueprint”

If you’re going through a hard time in your life and don’t know why bad things seem to keep happening to you, just remember that everything happens for a reason. What? You don’t believe me? You think that’s just something people tell themselves in order to get through difficult moments? Well then, may I please introduce you to a little band called Led Zeppelin…

The word “serendipity” was originally given its meaning thanks to the writer Horace Walpole. He was discussing an ancient story called The Three Princes of Serendip, and was scrutinising how a lot of what the princes do in the story is the result of accidents and happenstance. Led Zeppelin are a pretty good example of the word serendipity, as while a lot of their fortune came from their great music and live performances, their meeting and starting a band in the first place was all pretty fortuitous.

Jimmy Page was looking to start a band, John Paul Jones wanted to be in a band, and his wife said she heard Page was starting one. Page started looking for a singer, but everyone he knew in London was already working on something. This took him to Birmingham, where he met Robert Plant, who was close to giving up on music altogether before Page came along.

“We just need a drummer,” said Page (I’m paraphrasing). “Oh, I know a guy,” replied Plant (still paraphrasing).

They met under these circumstances and were lucky to do so, but they didn’t realise quite how fortunate they were until they all started playing together. In a small basement in the area that we now know as Chinatown in Soho, they started a Yardbirds cover and realised quickly they stumbled onto something exciting. Each musician was one of the best in their field, they could play in a harmonious way, and they all wanted to make music that embraced various styles rather than just straight down the line rock. The rest is history.

Their approach to songwriting became very free-flowing, as every single member seemed keen on incorporating multiple different genres, but doing so in a way that still felt cohesive and easy to listen to. This is a tricky balance to strike, but Zeppelin managed it, creating tracks that were acoustic one minute and then heavy the next. There is real excitement when you start listening to a Zeppelin song, because you don’t know which direction it will go in.

A lot of artists since Zeppelin have embraced the freedom that they wrote with and made it their own, one of which was Nancy Wilson from Heart. When talking about her favourite guitarists, she was giving Jimmy Page his credit, but that quickly turned into a comment about how Led Zeppelin inspired the whole band, not just her. Heart never felt the need to restrict themselves when writing, and it was because of the example Zeppelin set with the music they made. There is one song in particular that sticks out to Wilson as a real game-changer.

“Led Zeppelin were this beautifully mysterious melodic rock band,” she concluded. “They would break out all these acoustic guitars and mandolins on songs like ‘Going to California’, and that was the blueprint for our band – we wanted our band to have all these different stylistic ways of playing.”

Zeppelin’s influence can still be felt across music today, as every band who are willing to push themselves and try something new owes something to that four.