POO: Ridiculous Led Zeppelin Lyric

'every breath i take
every move i make,
baby please don't go..'

Mmmm, must have been the inspiration for his reggae direction.
So THAT'S how it's done, a young Gordon Sumner thought to himself.

Sisters of the way-side bide their time in quiet peace,
Await their place within the ring of calm;
Still stand to turn in seconds of release,
Await the call they know may never come.
In times of lightness, no intruder dared upon
To jeopardize the course, upset the run;
And all was joy and hands were raised toward the sun
As love in the halls of plenty overrun.

Still in their bliss unchallenged mighty feast,
Unending dances shadowed on the day.
Within their walls, their daunting formless keep,
Preserved their joy and kept their doubts at bay.
Faceless legions stood in readiness to weep,
Just turn a coin, bring order to the fray;
And everything is soon no sooner thought than deed,
But no one seemed to question in anyway.

How keen the storied hunter’s eye prevails upon the land
To seek the unsuspecting and the weak;
And powerless the fabled sat, too smug to lift a hand
Toward the foe that threatened from the deep.
Who cares to dry the cheeks of those who saddened stand
Adrift upon a sea of futile speech?
And to fall to fate and make the ’status plan’
Where was your word, where did you go?
Where was your helping, where was your bow? bow.
Dull is the armour, cold is the day.
Hard was the journey, dark was the way. way.
I heard the word; I couldn’t stay. oh.
I couldn’t stand it another day, another day,
Another day, another day.

Touched by the timely coming,
Roused from the keeper’s sleep,
Release the grip, throw down the key.

Held now within the knowing,
Rest now within the peace.
Take of the fruit, but guard the seed.

They had to stay!

Held now within the knowing,
Rest now within the beat.
Take of the fruit, but guard the seed...

Praise Thor, I always thought I was the only one who couldn't handle that! :)

But Gollum - and the evil One
(as in the one ring , right? That's how he was able to sneak up on Bob Plant)

Not ridiculous from a Crowleyan perspective. Check out "Diary of A Drug Fiend" to learn a little about Big Lion.

Or, I will save you some time... Big Lion is Satan; that is, "STN" (shin teth nun) in Hebrew. This refers to the driving life force in man, Kundalini, the Serpent Power, the Black Flame that shoots forth from the Void of Darkenss/No-Thing, dances through life and eventually returns to the Void. It is "Hadit" that travels through "Nuit": this experience of point-unity is called "Ra-Hoor-Khuit" or "Heru-Ra-Ha." It is the SOLAR POWER of Tiphareth, the solar phallic power (Hadit) which is ever-penetrating the infinite expance of the eternal Virgin Isis' womb (Nuit). The sperm is likened to a tadpole (see Robert Plant's crotch illustration on his pants in The Song Remains The Same) and Nuit, or any finite body, like a container or jar.

Compare to the previous line: "I told your mamma I'd get you home but I didn't tell her I had no car"... He's talking about sex here. In the Crowleyan cosmology, the Universe is sexual (and it's not a bad thing). "You are my flower, you are my power, You are my woman who knows." He's talking about sex magic by 2 willing partners playing their parts in sacred union.

The few remaining lines of the song also make sense in this light: "I said it's alright. You know it's alright - I guess it's all in my heart": Tiphareth is the heart and the "Sun" of a man who is the center of his personal Universe/solar system; it is all in his heart.

And then, "sipping booze is precedent as the evening starts to glow" refers to both the worship of Nuit (also "night") and the drug revolution and mind expansion Crowley rightly predicted 20 years earlier in Liber Al Vel Legis: "worship me with wine and strange drugs." All this ecstasy "Unto me! Ever Unto me! (Nuit)" Thus: the lion and the tadpole are alone in the jar (Nuit); the woman is a representation of Nuit.

LZ was playing to people like them and Crowley had made a big comeback since appearing on the cover of Sgt. Peppers. Page wasn't the only one in the band into Crowley, but he was way into Crowley more than most people even today.

"Hot Dog"

And then followed with the next line, "...For me, the cloth once more to spin". WTF, Robert?

That song is about the same Crowleyan subject matter regarding Hadit and Nuit. You can probably piece it together yourself based on what I wrote above:
"Yours is the cloth, mine is the hand that sews time
His is the force that lies within
Ours is the fire, all the warmth we can find
He is a feather in the wind"

(But "She better not talk like Barry White" more than makes up for it!)

I realized this week that Zeppelin may be the only band I like where I actually don't care about the lyrics. This hit me when I listened to "Trampled Under Foot", a song I've heard dozens of times over the years, and listened to the lyrics for the first time. They're pretty ridiculous, and I had never known, because I had never thought to listen for them. But I thought, great song anyway.

For many artists, the song exists as a vehicle for the lyrics. Zeppelin are the complete opposite: the song structures, production techniques, and Plant's delivery (both highly expressive and highly inarticulate) render the lyrical content superfluous or irrelevant.

(There are exceptions, of course, but I think that's a general rule for this band.)

Agree/disagree/other examples?

"T.U.F." is excusable as being part of the Blues tradition of car=sex lyrics ("Terraplane Blues", "Me and My Chauffer Blues" etc.).

Yeah, but Zep renders it ridiculous by constantly reminding us that they are, in fact, talkin' bout love. ("It's a metaphor, people! Do you get it? DO! YOU! GET! IT!!???") The blues tradition didn't require that.

Agree/disagree/other examples?

Agree, though I think it's true of a lot of bands/artists I like.