It's Friday night. There's a bowl just sitting there waiting. Why not?

February 16, 2018 8:27 PM

Robert Plant's 1993 Fate Of Nations was his sixth solo album. It's draws from a lot of influences. Like, a LOT. Side 1: Calling To You [video], Down To The Sea, Come Into My Life, I Believe, 29 Palms [video], Memory Song (Hello Hello)

Side 2: If I Were A Carpenter [video], Colours Of A Shade, Promised Land, The Greatest Gift, Great Spirit, Network News

posted by hippybear (15 comments total)

My seventh grade teacher used to put this on the stereo, tell us to read for a while, and slowly rub Vaseline on his scalp.
posted by Beardman at 8:38 PM on February 16, 2018 [18 favorites]

I don't know whether I should flag that comment or not.
posted by hippybear at 8:40 PM on February 16, 2018 [28 favorites]

I have always found it challenging to listen to his solo work. Not because it isn't good, which it is, but because it doesn't have the raw, gritty sound that I always associate with him. It's too smooth, too polished to be the same guy that sang all of those amazing songs - and that's just as much to do with the technology of the times as it has to do with a guy just singing his songs.

It's not quite the same problem that I have with Sting (ooh, Dream of the Blue Turtles would be a good post!) in that Sting totally changed his sound. Robert Plant didn't do that, and his more recent output with the Strange Attraction reinforces his love for grit. Check it out. His work with Alison Krauss is also compelling, but in a different way. It's organic, bluesy, bluegrassy and sometimes just darkly lush.

As always, thanks for the post, hippybear.
posted by ashbury at 9:33 PM on February 16, 2018 [1 favorite]

I was gonna turn this post in another direction but then I wised up.
posted by bendy at 1:15 AM on February 17, 2018

Unless I missed a post, hippybear, your last one was about Tori Amos. When I saw her live in the '90s, she let the audience know what she thought about Robert Plant. IIRC, she put two fingers between her legs on the piano bench and swayed, wailing happily.

Yep.
posted by goofyfoot at 6:05 AM on February 17, 2018 [2 favorites]

In the early 90s, on a warm night in the late spring, in the hushed hours after midnight, I was driving from Los Angeles to Phoenix in my baby blue, 1969 Plymouth Valiant. The windows were down and I was the only car on the road. I might have been the only car in the world at that moment.

The smells of desert sage and creosote. The sound of the wind rushing past. The hurtling gray ribbon of asphalt, with its spotted lines in the headlights. The dim starlight and the vague outlines of rocky hills off in the distance.

That night ride, slipping through the dark desert at imprudent speed, was spent in a great, roiling, inner turmoil. I was on the run from an agonizing obsession with a guy that didn’t love me. Couldn’t love me. He was straight. I was too young and it was my first unrequited love and it seemed like, truly, the end of all.

And then Robert Plant’s “Big Log” came on the radio...

As the haunting guitar struck the opening chords, and the wistful lyrics began, I realized what people meant by a “broken heart”. Because it felt like something inside me just...broke.


“My love is in league with the freeway,
It's passion will rise as the cities fly by
And the tail lights dissolve in the coming of night
And the questions and thousands take flight.

My love is miles in awaiting
The eyes that just stare and the glance at the clock
In the secret that burns and the pain that won't stop
And it's fueled with the years

Leading me on
Leading me down the road
Driving me on
Driving me down the road”


***
posted by darkstar at 6:39 AM on February 17, 2018 [9 favorites]

We saw a show on this tour at the Northrop Auditorium in Mpls - a large theater. He had up to three guitar players with him (shows what it takes to cover for Jimmy) and played mostly his solo stuff with a few Zep covers that were turned slightly on their sides. "29 Palms" and "Calling to You" were crowd favorites. My wife, who is not a fan of RP, pointed to the stage and said, "OK, it's not my kind of music but he is the definition of stage presence."

Frame of reference - I saw him with his old band in '77. My brother and I were in the tenth row. Three and a half hours of standing in the face of angry gods - especially Bonham. Page was straight that night and just deadly. As they say, it was blood, thunder, and hammer of the gods.
posted by Ber at 8:00 AM on February 17, 2018 [2 favorites]

And then Robert Plant’s “Big Log” came on the radio...

Love this song and “In the Mood”. It was a little dose of art rock on FM radio in the early 80s.
posted by porn in the woods at 8:14 AM on February 17, 2018 [5 favorites]

I've been a huge Robert Plant fan and have several of his solo works going to back to when they were originally issued on vinyl. 29 Palms was fun to listen to during drives through the desert.
posted by fuse theorem at 9:25 AM on February 17, 2018 [1 favorite]

I think I was the first critic of Led Zep and Plant in Chicago. After they played a 1969 2 buck Tuesday gig at the old Electric Playground, I augustly proclaimed, "Biggie deal, a lead singer who can shriek on key". Decades later, I must admit Robert Plant is a possessor of a profoundly deep and unique musical sensibility. ... and, he can shriek on key.
posted by Chitownfats at 9:43 AM on February 17, 2018 [2 favorites]

I didn't pay much attention to Robert Plat's solo work until "Raising Sand," his album with Alison Krause. I started paying attention after that and his "Carry Fire" was one of my favorite albums of 2017. Still have some catching up to do, so thanks for this post.
posted by maurice at 2:15 PM on February 17, 2018 [1 favorite]

I finally reach the point in my life where I no longer get homicidal when Zeppelin comes on and you move the goal posts on me.

Damnit hippybear !
posted by evilDoug at 3:23 PM on February 17, 2018

So are you more or less homicidal now? Asking for a friend.
posted by hippybear at 3:46 PM on February 17, 2018 [1 favorite]

Huh...I just re-read the Big Log lyrics I posted (copypasted from the internets) and they didn’t sound quite like I remembered the song. So I played the song and they do seem off a little.

I remember - and the song supports - the lyrics as: “And the questions, in thousands, take flight.”

Similarly, I think the other line is: “And it’s you, once again, leading me on...”


Although there are various versions of the lyrics given online, some of them are strangely unlike what I’m hearing in the song. But whatever the official lyrics I recall, these are the ones I’ve known and held dear for many years.
posted by darkstar at 6:11 PM on February 18, 2018 [1 favorite]

I played my cassette tape of Now and Zen so much, listening to Ship of Fools, that the tape began to stretch out.
posted by culfinglin at 3:16 PM on February 20, 2018