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Howard Stern Exposes Led Zeppelin As A Farce


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Zep did have some trouble crediting people properly, but it doesn't change the quality of their music. Zep III and on were basically all them. People forget about the rest of their music past 1969. They were sued for their mistakes and it's over now.

They surely weren't the first to "borrow" from others and they definitely weren't the last.

Where's the questioning or outrage over Pink Floyd's "Money" sounding VERY similar to Zep's "How Many More Times" or Chicago's "25 or 6 to 4" sounding an awful lot like 2:23-2:58 of Zep's "Babe, I'm Gonna Leave You" ?? I wanna hear about them being "thieves." It should be fair game for all bands. Not super talented ones that achieved massive success so people want to break them down and find a fault to try and take away fans.

It happened 40 years ago. Let's move on. Enjoy the music and rock on.

I think that is the crux of what this is all about. The writing credit on the album jacket. I've never read any public statement from LZ where they argued that all their material (especially from the first two albums) was 100% original.

BTW, you could include Cheap Trick's "Heaven tonight" to the list of Zeppelin inspired music. The intro is quite similar to the main riff of Kashmir.

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I think that is the crux of what this is all about. The writing credit on the album jacket. I've never read any public statement from LZ where they argued that all their material (especially from the first two albums) was 100% original.

BTW, you could include Cheap Trick's "Heaven tonight" to the list of Zeppelin inspired music. The intro is quite similar to the main riff of Kashmir.

Good call. To simply call them "The Greatest Cover Band" or whatever sarcastic name people want to throw out there, is ludicrous.

"Kashmir" "Achilles' Last Stand" "The Rain Song" "Immigrant Song" "Since I've Been Loving You" "In The Evening" "Heartbreaker" "Communication Breakdown" "Black Dog"...etc....all originals and all amazing.

Let these people find a fault. If that's the fault on Zep.... then it shows how amazing they really are.

John Lennon is revered by almost everyone but was taken to court for copyright issues. Where's the jokes and outrage there? He got a free pass. I love Lennon and i know he and The Beatles were musical geniuses too, but i wonder what would happen if people had said The Beatles were the best "cover band" ever?! :huh:

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Howard Stern has been comparing songs that sound like one another or have ripped off another song since the mid 80's, it used to be a big bit on his show. He's not going after Zeppelin any more than he's gone after others in the past. A more famous example is when he would play George Harrison's "My Sweet Lord" back to back with The Chiffons "He's So Fine".

Eddie Cochran's "Nervous Breakdown" in comparison to Zep's "Communication Breakdown" has always been a sore point with me. The songs have nothing in common outside of the phrase "having a nervous breakdown" & that's it. That's quite a stretch. I'm sure there were thousands of ballads that contained the phrase "I love her" before Paul McCartney wrote "And I Love Her" & it would be quite a stretch to accuse him of plagarising that song based on a common phrase. Anyway, Stephen Davis made the comparison to "NB" & "CB" in Hammer Of The Gods & it stuck, unfortunately like other musings of his like pacts with Satan & such.

Also I believe Zeppelin does get held to a criteria that other artists don't & I really do believe it's out of bias. No critic comes down on The Beatles, The Stones, or The Who for their first albums being heavy on covers or appropriated songs but Zeppelins first 2 albums are derided as cover albums. Ridiculous.

Where are the writing credits to Bo Diddley on Buddy Holly's "Not Fade Away", The Who's "Magic Bus", & Bruce Springsteens "Badlands"? They all appropriate the Bo Diddley beat but music "journalists" consider those a "tribute" & not a steal. Tell that Bo Diddley's bank account. And Bo Diddley himself has never been accused of recycling ideas from his earlier songs, that's his style. When Page takes the guitar lead that he wrote from the Yardbirds "Think About It" & grafts it onto "Dazed and Confused" he's plagarising himself.

And what about Clapton? He's not considered a thief of old blues artists but a "student". Good then, because Albert King wouldn't be upset that the "Layla" guitar riff is from his "As The Years Go Passing By" or his guitar solo from "Oh Pretty Woman" ended up on Cream's "Strange Brew" which itself is a ripoff of "Lawdy Mama", none of which are credited to Albert King. Did Clapton steal the opening bits of "Stairway" for his own "Let It Grow" or was he a "student" enough to go to the supposed original source of Sprit's "Taurus"? The one time Clapton does get accused of ripping off someone is for his cover of "I Shot The Sherrif" which has the proper credits. His offence? He made it bigger hit than Marley & it was outside of his blues genre. Thievery from one black musician is ok as long as your a student of the genre but doing it the legit way in another black artists genre equals thievery. Don't you love the hypocrisy?

The Stones sued the Verve for sampling an orchestrated version of "their" song "The Last Time" for the Verve's "Bittersweet Symphony". The credits now read "Jagger-Richards-Ashcroft" with most of the royalties going to the Stones. Someone should inform Ashcroft that The Stones "The Last Time" is actually a ripoff of the Staples Singers "This May Be The Last Time". Jagger & Richards not only have consistently ripped off artists across genres through lack of writing credits but also members of their own band. Ask Bill Wyman who's riff it is to "Jumpin' Jack Flash" & "Paint It Black" & then see what the writing credits say. Ask Mick Taylor who wrote the music to "Moonlight Mile" & see what the writing credits say even though Richards doesn't even play on the song much less had any part of writing it. Does anyone not know that Robert Johnson wrote "Love In Vain"? Apparently Jagger & Richards because it's under trad. arr. to them with no mention of Johnson & it is not a radical re-working of the song.

And I could go on & on. But these artists are never held up as thieves, ever. Led Zeppelin should acknowledge "Dazed & Confused" is mainly a Jake Holmes song but that's as far as I would go. The rest is absolute bias against them.

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Howard Stern has been comparing songs that sound like one another or have ripped off another song since the mid 80's, it used to be a big bit on his show. He's not going after Zeppelin any more than he's gone after others in the past. A more famous example is when he would play George Harrison's "My Sweet Lord" back to back with The Chiffons "He's So Fine".

Eddie Cochran's "Nervous Breakdown" in comparison to Zep's "Communication Breakdown" has always been a sore point with me. The songs have nothing in common outside of the phrase "having a nervous breakdown" & that's it. That's quite a stretch. I'm sure there were thousands of ballads that contained the phrase "I love her" before Paul McCartney wrote "And I Love Her" & it would be quite a stretch to accuse him of plagiarizing that song based on a common phrase. Anyway, Stephen Davis made the comparison to "NB" & "CB" in Hammer Of The Gods & it stuck, unfortunately like other musings of his like pacts with Satan & such.

Also I believe Zeppelin does get held to a criteria that other artists don't & I really do believe it's out of bias. No critic comes down on The Beatles, The Stones, or The Who for their first albums being heavy on covers or appropriated songs but Zeppelins first 2 albums are derided as cover albums. Ridiculous.

Where are the writing credits to Bo Diddley on Buddy Holly's "Not Fade Away", The Who's "Magic Bus", & Bruce Springsteens "Badlands"? They all appropriate the Bo Diddley beat but music "journalists" consider those a "tribute" & not a steal. Tell that Bo Diddley's bank account. And Bo Diddley himself has never been accused of recycling ideas from his earlier songs, that's his style. When Page takes the guitar lead that he wrote from the Yardbirds "Think About It" & grafts it onto "Dazed and Confused" he's plagiarizing himself.

And what about Clapton? He's not considered a thief of old blues artists but a "student". Good then, because Albert King wouldn't be upset that the "Layla" guitar riff is from his "As The Years Go Passing By" or his guitar solo from "Oh Pretty Woman" ended up on Cream's "Strange Brew" which itself is a ripoff of "Lawdy Mama", none of which are credited to Albert King. Did Clapton steal the opening bits of "Stairway" for his own "Let It Grow" or was he a "student" enough to go to the supposed original source of Sprit's "Taurus"? The one time Clapton does get accused of ripping off someone is for his cover of "I Shot The Sherrif" which has the proper credits. His offense? He made it bigger hit than Marley & it was outside of his blues genre. Thievery from one black musician is ok as long as your a student of the genre but doing it the legit way in another black artists genre equals thievery. Don't you love the hypocrisy?

The Stones sued the Verve for sampling an orchestrated version of "their" song "The Last Time" for the Verve's "Bittersweet Symphony". The credits now read "Jagger-Richards-Ashcroft" with most of the royalties going to the Stones. Someone should inform Ashcroft that The Stones "The Last Time" is actually a ripoff of the Staples Singers "This May Be The Last Time". Jagger & Richards not only have consistently ripped off artists across genres through lack of writing credits but also members of their own band. Ask Bill Wyman who's riff it is to "Jumpin' Jack Flash" & "Paint It Black" & then see what the writing credits say. Ask Mick Taylor who wrote the music to "Moonlight Mile" & see what the writing credits say even though Richards doesn't even play on the song much less had any part of writing it. Does anyone not know that Robert Johnson wrote "Love In Vain"? Apparently Jagger & Richards because it's under trad. arr. to them with no mention of Johnson & it is not a radical re-working of the song.

And I could go on & on. But these artists are never held up as thieves, ever. Led Zeppelin should acknowledge "Dazed & Confused" is mainly a Jake Holmes song but that's as far as I would go. The rest is absolute bias against them.

Beautifully put my friend.

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Howie has a thing about "ripping off". If you listen to him enough he will claim to have created every interesting thing on radio. He accuses every DJ of ripping him off (even though several of his bits were stolen). One time he was talking about how in the 80's he would have musicians on his show play their songs on an acoustic guitar and then claimed MTV's Unplugged was HIS idea even though the old FM rock stations had thousands of hours of recordings of musicians visiting their studios in the 70's and playing for them. And don't forget his show is about being provocative. It's his job to get a rise out of people and to get publicity. He's an entertainer and one way he does that is by annoying people. The fact that there are 6 pages of responses to this post means he did his job very well.

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I have to admit to having listened to Howard on a semi-regular basis back in the early 90s. He was quite funny at times and offensive at others, but he was inarguably a major pop culture figure.

Fast forward fifteen years and you just don't hear about him all that much anymore, and the snippets I hear from him today seem like the same old schtick. Topless women ON THE RADIO just don't seem all that cutting edge anymore <_< I can visualize boobs without having to pay for satellite radio anyway, thank you very much :)

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  • 1 year later...

I wouldn't mind if someone took my own personal creation, musical or not, and transformed it into something different. The problem is that because we are in the realm of culture, there is no science to determine whether one version holds the quality of being "different enough".

Led Zeppelin took previous works and made something completely new. Words and music are tools of the common man. Which arrangements of both are we allowed to say are ours? This is an age old question of ownership.

check out my "but"

but it all depends on your definition of plagiarism.

are simply taking lyrics plagiarizing?

are simply taking riffs plagiarizing?

I don't think so. I think there is more to a song than those dimensions. But as a culture, we are only able to put into words certain dimensions of songs. Notice how we can't stop people from copying the "feel" of a song. This is what Led Zeppelin didn't do. They changed the feel, as you noted, and I think that's enough to make it a different work altogether.

Perhaps the worldly accepted definition of plagiarism changed with the times of the releases? These things are not static. What is acceptable in a culture is ever changing, just some at different rates than others.

I don't think I've heard Dylan's version, but if it's as different as you describe, then I think Hendrix should have taken full credit.

good question. I think that Led Zeppelin's popularity is ever growing and that every Led Zeppelin fan has to discover these controversies at some point. This thread is a recent incantation of those newer fans.

I agree with everything

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howard, as some have said, is a HUGE zeppelin fan. he often sings the opening to immigrant song on the show,knowing he sounds silly, but not caring, for he loves the music.

that said, howard is NOT a huge ROBERT AS A PERSON fan. it started way back in '85 when robert was playing the meadowlands. back then, there was no stuttering john and boy gary would do the ambush interviews. well when robert was walking, gary started with some ridiculous questions, such as 'robert...what is a bustle in a hedgerow?', to which robert kept brushing him aside and answering with 'pass'...in his british accent no less, so they would play this interview and mock robert saying 'poss'.

from there, over the years, whenever some zep rumors would surface and nothing would come through, howard, as a fan, would rip on howard.

mind you that this thread is mentioning something that i think happened in maybe 2007? so this doesn't take into account his feelings towards raising sand, nor band of joy, and as the one person said, you don't hear much from howard now (merely 'cause he is on satellite and it is no longer a 'passing thing' for people to listen in their cars. they either went out and bought serius or they didn't.), plus i have been sick, so i don't know his feelings towards these two projects, though i can't see him not LIKING them, but rather i CAN see him more itching for the big reunion...what is and what should never be.

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I agree with everything

Thank you for resurrecting my interest for comments I made 3 years ago. :P

As an update, I have since covered Dylan's "All Along the Watchtower" myself. I can't take any credit though as my changes are not significant enough.

But what of Bob Dylan? Joni Mitchell has this to say, "Bob is not authentic at all. He’s a plagiarist, and his name and voice are fake. Everything about Bob is a deception. We are like night and day, he and I."

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  • 2 months later...

I'll plug a little here to say that my new book, Led Zeppelin FAQ, goes into the plagiarism controversy pretty extensively. The issue may never be settled to everyone's satisfaction, but I think I've given the matter a thorough going-over for lovers and haters alike.

post-12775-0-47975300-1320882396.gif

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there's a difference between doing a word-for-word and note-for-note cover song and taking some material and transforming it into something new.

If they did the songs exactly like the previous bands/artists, then they'd be a cover band. But they didn't. They took something good and made it better. A lot better.

Utter rubbish. angry.gif

Couldn't agree more!

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  • 3 weeks later...

I'll plug a little here to say that my new book, Led Zeppelin FAQ, goes into the plagiarism controversy pretty extensively. The issue may never be settled to everyone's satisfaction, but I think I've given the matter a thorough going-over for lovers and haters alike.

I just picked up your book & it was really good. I liked the comparison to Elvis's "Burning Love" to "Zeppelin's "The Rover" in it... I listened to both over & over again back to back then it finally hit me. I also like how you discredited that as a lift as well but the comparison's threw me for a loop as I love both songs & never made the connection before.

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  • 5 weeks later...

YES this sure knocks them down a peg on being the great original for sure facts don't lie.Still a great band.They still made them their own.

- "Babe I'm Gonna Leave You" originally by Anne Bredon

- "You Shook Me" was originally a Willie Dixon song

- "Dazed and Confused" was originally by Jake Holmes ("I'm Confused"), but arranged by Page and the drummer of the Yardbirds, including some lyric changes

- "Black Mountain Side" is a traditional piece (?) but was played by Anne Briggs, who also taught it to Bert Jansch, called "Black Waterside"

- "Communication Breakdown" is considered similar to Eddie Cochran's "Nervous Breakdown"

- "I Can't Quit You Baby" was also originally a Willie Dixon tune...

- "How Many More Times" has elements of various blues songs but is mostly similar to Howlin' Wolf's "How Many More Years"...

Second album has a few "covers" as well:

- "Whole Lotta Love" is pretty much Muddy Waters' "You Need Love" (also by Willie Dixon) but with slightly different lyrics...

- "The Lemon Song" takes a lot from Howlin' Wolf's "Killing Floor"

- The beginning of "Bring It On Home" is identical to Sonny Boy Williamson's "Bring It On Home," (written by Dixon) although as soon as that main riff kicks in it's a Page/Plant original...

On the third album, "Gallows Pole" is a traditional song "Gallis Pole", but arranged by Page... And Hat's Off has pieces of "Shake 'em on Down" by Bukka White and "Lone Wolf Blues" by Oscar Woods...

On the fourth album, "When The Levee Breaks" was originally a Memphis Minnie song...

On Physical Graffiti, "In My Time of Dying" was previously recorded by Bob Dylan and originally by Blind Willie Johnson. "Boogie With Stu" is very similar to Ritchie Valenz's "Ooh! My Head"

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Willie Dixon has always been credited on Led Zeppelin I for "You Shook Me" and "I Can't Quit You"...as was Memphis Minnie for "Levee" and Mrs. Valens on "Boogie With Stu".

Actually, this is another Stern-related thread that is imprecise in its topic heading. Saying "Stern EXPOSES Zeppelin as a farce" suggests it is true, case-closed. A better way of heading the thread would have been to say Stern ALLEGES...or Accuses...Zeppelin is a farce.

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Stern is a douchebag, I couldnt care less about what he says.

I am with you all the way. The guy is a total piece of crap. Low life. We have a local DJ that is pretty big and has met and talked to many important people including musicians. He always said he had wished he could have seen LZ. I remember him back in the eighties saying on the radio how he would love to see Zeppelin. He was in Vietnam and I think that hindered him seeing them in part in the early years. Then he like many had tickets to the Buffalo show that would never happen due to the tragic death of Robert's son. I believe it happened days before the Buffalo concert.

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Ugh. Again, I don't know WHY "Comunication Breakdown" gets thrown into this. Actually I do know WHY, because it's easier for people to read somewhere that the songs are similar & to repeat that information rather than actually listening to the songs in question back to back, so it's a very lazy charge. They are not similar songs outside of each song using a common phrase of "having a nervous breakdown". It's a common phrase for goodness sake! Where else are the songs similar? Because there's guitar, bass, drums, & a vocalist on both? Is it because of time length as "CB" is 10 seconds longer than "NB"? It's grasping at straws. For those who just repeat the charges against LZ in the poll of public opinion at least should listen to the songs one is compared to first before going along with the charge. Also there's nothing wrong with anyone covering a song, in fact it was the thing to do for the overwhelming majority of artists back then, that was just the business & the culture of the industry so just leave "You Shook Me" & "I Can't Quit You Baby" out of it too as far as being "rip offs". The only "rip off's" are the songs they clearly appropriated in large chucks without giving credit to the actual author/writer of a song, the traditionally arranged stuff they appropriated, hey, it may not be original but neither was the artists version before their's & so on as songs in the public domain or traditionally arranged songs are essentially a building block for the various versions to come later.

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  • 4 weeks later...

- "Black Mountain Side" is a traditional piece (?) but was played by Anne Briggs, who also taught it to Bert Jansch, called "Black Waterside"

Actually, It's more like this. Black Waterside is a traditional Irish folk song. Bert Jansch learned the song from Anne Briggs, but came up with his own original arrangement which he released on his Jack Orion album in 1966. Jimmy Page, who has said that he was obsessed with Bert Jansch at one point, took that arrangement almost note for note and turned it into an instrumental (Jansch's version kept the traditional lyrics) with a slightly different title (Mountain vs Water). Page also added tabla to the song to give it an Indian influence. When Bert Jansch heard the song he considered suing Jimmy Page. However, after consulting with lawyers he decided not to since the fact that he was performing a traditional song would make it harder to win a case in court. Page later admitted that he wasn't "totally original" on that song.

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