It’s hard to say the name “Plant” and not immediately put “Page” after it. Robert Plant and Jimmy Page are a duo as instantly recognizable as Lennon and McCartney or Jagger and Richards. But before they could become rock royalty, the pair had to find each other. According to Page, from their first meeting on, he knew they were destined for greatness together. Find out below which song Plant used to audition for what would become Led Zeppelin.
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The Song Robert Plant Sang to Audition for Led Zeppelin
I’ll leave you when the summertime
Leave you when the summer comes a rollin’
Leave you when the summer comes along
We really got to ramble
I can hear it callin’ me the way it used to do
Page had been scouring the rock world for a vocalist to front his fledgling band. After making a name for himself as a musician, Page was ready to orchestrate an outfit of his own. One of his first tasks was finding the right singer.
He explored several options, but Plant blew them all away. Plant once recalled being asked to sing for The Yardbirds (the iteration of the band before Led Zeppelin came to fruition). He chose to rework a folk standard, “Babe I’m Gonna Leave You”.
“I was appearing at this college when [manager Peter Grant] and Jimmy turned up and asked me if I’d like to join the Yardbirds,” Plant once said. “I knew the Yardbirds had done a lot of work in America – which to me meant audiences who would want to know what I might have to offer – so naturally, I was very interested.”
Page’s First Impression of Plant
Page instantly knew that Plant was the right fit. He only had one question: “How is this guy not famous yet?”
“When I auditioned him and heard him sing, I immediately thought there must be something wrong with him personality-wise or that he had to be impossible to work with, because I just could not understand why, after he told me he’d been singing for a few years already, he hadn’t become a big name yet,” Page continued.
It seems the universe was trying to save Plant’s talent for Led Zeppelin. Revisit the recorded version of “Babe I’m Gonna Leave You”, below.
I can hear it callin’ me back home
Babe!
Oh!
Babe, I’m gonna leave you
(Photos by Brad Elterman/FilmMagic)
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