Jump to content

Who is the Swan Song Angel?


Recommended Posts

  • 1 year later...

I was surfing the net and came across a site that I've been familiar with for a long time but hadn't visited in ages. While there I found something very interesting and well related to this thread that some of you may find informative or at least interesting.

The site owner, Steven William Rimmer, is a decendent (great-great-great nephew) of the artist, William Rimmer, that painted the picture Evening or the Fall of Day that was eventually used as the basis for the Swan Song logo.

The site's owner is also (what I would consider a prolific) writer and I beleive that he still owns the software company that he created in the early half of the 1990's Alchemy Mindworks, a graphics utility company.

The section about William Rimmer and the Evening or the Fall of Day can be found at http://www.mindworks...com/indcnt.html you will need to scroll down to the very last section of the page.

Have a look around, the site is a very interesting place where one can tend to end up spending a fair amount of time browsing!

Best wishes all.

Daniel

Link to comment
Share on other sites

A full interpretation of the Swan Song logo can be found in my Led Zeppelin FAQ book. I was fortunate to get some info from Joe Petagno, the illustrator who actually rendered the pic for the Zeppelin people in 1974. He's a good artist and a nice guy, not to mention the hidden connection between LZ and Motorhead.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

In the Led Zeppelin Official Store (on this site) there's a couple of shirts and hats that call it Icarus. So I'm assuming that's what it is.

I did not know this. You have official settled the argument.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

No, I think they're being genuine. If their own website calls the image "Icarus" that's pretty much a definitive statement as to the image's identity. I wonder how many readers here are familiar with this myth? Greco-Roman Mythology gets rather a short shrift in public education these days.

The myth was, (lemme see if I can remember this straight)

Daedelus designed the Labyrinth of the Minotaur for King Minos (he of 'the golden touch) of Crete.

For his efforts, Daedelus and his Icarus were thrown into the Labyrinth to be killed by the Minotaur.

Daedelus made wings of feathers and wax so that he and his son could fly and escape the Labyrinth.

Icarus flew too close to the Sun, and the wax melted and Icarus fell to his death because he did not heed his father's warnings.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

No, I think they're being genuine. If their own website calls the image "Icarus" that's pretty much a definitive statement as to the image's identity. I wonder how many readers here are familiar with this myth? Greco-Roman Mythology gets rather a short shrift in public education these days.

The myth was, (lemme see if I can remember this straight)

Daedelus designed the Labyrinth of the Minotaur for King Minos (he of 'the golden touch) of Crete.

For his efforts, Daedelus and his Icarus were thrown into the Labyrinth to be killed by the Minotaur.

Daedelus made wings of feathers and wax so that he and his son could fly and escape the Labyrinth.

Icarus flew too close to the Sun, and the wax melted and Icarus fell to his death because he did not heed his father's warnings.

O cool thanks for clearing that up. I would totally get it if they were being sarcastic because my reasoning was that it said it on a hat..but its their hat. :)

Cool story as well, thank you!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 1 month later...

Are you sassin me? I can never tell if people are being sarcastic or not.

I haven't been back to this thread in a while so you might not see this now but I'm not sassing you. Led Zeppelin called him Icarus so that's good enough for me. I don't know what the original artist intended for his painting but I'll refer to him as Icarus from now on since that's who the band intended for him to be called on their record label. I kinda wish I'd come back awhile ago since you thought I might be getting snarky with you.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 1 month later...

Its a great logo for a record label, another form of plagerism from the Zep guys though, but hey we are use to it.

Also its kind of ironic that its an angel as allegedly they were no angels :), but hey who is, I remember having a disc by Dave Edmonds with it on before I knew it was Zeps label.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 1 year later...

To me it's known as Apollo rising if you watch the song remains the same you might see something but for this interpretation yo have to look at it like it's the back of an Angel the body is not taken into account you have to look past it

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

×
×
  • Create New...