My love is exceedingly human,
This song is great. It’s wonderful. It stands on its own. Robert Plant may have been a bit strident with his “Led what?” bullshit of his early solo career, but that’s because he had an honest solo career for years before he gave in and starting squeezing lemons again (lighten up, baby. I’m in love with you) and growing out the old mane.
Not much of Plant’s 80′s stuff has aged well, but that’s the fault of the times, really. Not much from the 80′s sounds good today. Try listening to the Eurythmics on headphones. Go ahead. Pretty awful, right? Sounds like a goddamn singing Hallmark card. Yep.
Not so with Big Log. The melancholy guitar and excellent lyrics win out over the synth and the drum machine. Give it a listen. It’s a great fucking song, and the video is the coolest thing ever.
“My love is in league with the freeway”. Great video. They played it constantly on V66. I forgot about how he denied LZ for so long–6 years. Seemed like eternity back then. I still have a warm spot for Shaken & Stirred. “oh baby pleeeeeeeeeeeeeez don’t go….”
So no love for the “Tall Cool One”?
No love for Now and Zen, although Heaven Knows is ok. Jimmy plays on it. I didn’t like the two midlife crisis albums (now and zen and manic nirvana). Shaken and Stirred is truly ambitious, and I really like Little by Little and Simply Led, but… that album is a struggle. All head no heart. I can see why his band disbanded after this album. But then he hires a bunch of 20 somethings to make him relevant and hip, and … he does coca cola commercials and sings zep songs.
Fate of Nations was a wonderful return to the good stuff. Great tour too.
With all due respect to Mr. Plant’s fabulous singing ability, I hardly think that the first four years of any singer’s professional life is much of a “solo career”, and that’s all that Mr. Plant had before he joined Led Zeppelin. Led Zeppelin *made* Robert Plant, not the four years prior to that when Robert Plant was just getting his musical feet wet.
I agree with you. I wasn’t referring to his pre-zeppelin days. I meant that as his post zeppelin. The albums he made before Now and Zen. Before 1988 Plant didn’t play any Zep songs in his set. He distanced himself pretty extremely from that band.
I don’t consider his Band of Joy/Hobstweedle days as a solo career either. I just didn’t explain my thought very well. Thank you for commenting, Lif!
Whoah, it’s gotta be 20+ years since I’ve seen that. Even though MTV aired it every 20 minutes, I had forgotten how cinematic that video is. And the unforgettable, shimmering Strat sound, as if to also to say “Jimmy who?”
I know what you mean, the Gus. The fact that it was forced upon us every 8 seconds for a good 6 months, makes one move away from it. However, upon revisiting, you discover that the song is, actually, superb.