ER
LED ZEPPELIN released their song “The Battle of Evermore” on October 8, 1971. The song is a folk duet sung by Robert Plant and Sandy Denny, featured on Led Zeppelin’s 1971 album, commonly known as Led Zeppelin IV. The song’s instrumentation features acoustic guitar and mandolin playing.
The song was written by Jimmy Page at Headley Grange while he was experimenting on a mandolin owned by John Paul Jones. Page explained in 1977 that “Battle of Evermore” was quickly created by Robert [Plant] and myself. I just picked up a John Paul Jones mandolin, never played a mandolin before, and just wrote chords and all in one shot.”‘
This song, like others by the group, makes references to The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien. Plant felt he needed another voice to tell the story, and for the recording of the song, folk singer Sandy Denny was invited to a duet with Plant. Denny was a former member of the British folk group Fairport Convention, with whom Led Zeppelin had shared the stage in 1970 at the LA Bath Festival of Blues and Progressive Music.
Plant plays the role of narrator and Denny represents the bailiff. Page elaborated that “[This song] sounded like an old English instrumental that was first released. Then it became a vocal and Robert worked on it a bit. Eventually we thought we’d take Sandy in and do a question-and-answer style song.”
To thank him for his involvement, Denny was given the album’s artistic symbol of the Three Pyramids (the four Led Zeppelin members each chose their own symbol for the album). It is the only Led Zeppelin song ever recorded with a guest vocalist.
In an interview he gave in 1995 to Uncut magazine, Plant stated that ‘[For] me to sing with Sandy Denny was great. We’ve always been good friends with the Fairport Convention period back then. Richard Thompson is a superlative guitarist.
Sandy and I are friends, and it was the most obvious thing to ask him to sing on “The Battle of Evermore”. If this song suffers from naivety and authenticity — I’m only 23 — it succeeds in the cohesion of sound and play.’
“The Battle of Evermore” was played live at a Led Zeppelin concert during the band’s 1977 North American tour. For this live show, Jones sang Denny’s vocals and played acoustic guitar while Page played the mandolin. Sometimes John Bonham sings Denny’s vocals along with Jones.
Page and Plant also recorded a version of the song in 1994, released on their album No Quarter: Jimmy Page and Robert Plant Unledded. Singer Najma Akhtar sings the vocals of Denny.
Fairport Convention performs “The Battle of Evermore” with guest vocalists Plant and Kristina Donahue at Fairport’s Cropredy Convention on August 9, 2008. Plant and Alison Krauss regularly perform “The Battle of Evermore” on their tours of the US and Europe in the spring and summer. 2008 summer in promotion of their 2007 collaboration album, Raising Sand.
An instrumental version of the song is featured on the accompanying audio CD of the remastered 2CD version of Led Zeppelin IV, entitled The Battle of Evermore (Mandolin/Guitar Mix from Headley Grange), recorded on January 29, 1971, at Rolling Stones Mobile at Headley Grange with engineer Andy. Johns. This is much shorter than the original, with a running time of 4:13 instead of 5:51. [sources/photo special]
