When Giants Walked the Earth: A Biography of Led Zeppelin Book

Sometimes, I have these moments of personal insight into myself that make me realize that I do not do things the way that "normal" people do. This book definitely brought one of those on. I say this because I literally grew up listening to Led Zeppelin, to the point that I could recognize them from a half-second of playtime as I'm flipping through the radio dial or skipping randomized songs on my phone playlist. I literally cannot remember a time in my life that Led Zeppelin music wasn't there. But until I read this book, I couldn't have told you anything about Led Zeppelin themselves. Not how many members were in the band. Or what their names were. Etc. I loved the music in a "this is just the soundtrack of my life" kind of way and I never one time paused to think about it in terms of who the band was or how the music came be.

Which is kind of strange, considering that many of y'all might be aware of just how much I love origin stories. (Spoiler alert: A LOT.)

So I wasn't a "Led Zeppelin fan" so much as a "Led Zeppelin music lover". I was content with Zeppelin just being there, a constant in the background of my life. They hold a nostalgic place in my heart, reminding me of my dad and of an era (the 70s) that I never experienced and can only appreciate through cultural memory - music, movies, TV, etc. As I got older, and started to get some of the more… mature… references, I only came to love the music more. I mean, now I know why that Led guy loved lemons so much. :P

Anyway, considering all of that, I'm not sure how I feel about this book, but I think that my feelings about Led Zeppelin (by which I mean the music of them) are unchanged. I loved the origin story aspect of the book, especially because now knowing what I do about how this band came together, and the perfect combination of factors in each of the members that allowed them to work so well together, so quickly. I loved that bit... but honestly, so much of the rest of it, the antics and the drama and the blah blah blah... I don't care about. Maybe it's a bit shitty, but I am perfectly fine with knowing that Led Zeppelin made music I love, but may have been people I wouldn't have wanted to actually know. I don't really want or need to know anything else but the art. That is enough for me. The same as it is for books and the flawed human beings who write them. Sometimes, the less we know, the better.

It's not news to me, or anyone, that alcohol and drugs and groupies and craziness and out of control behavior were a thing that successful bands (and people) got involved with in the 70s. And still do. Led Zeppelin partook. No denying it. Sometimes it was a blast, and sometimes it cost them, heavily. That's the way it goes. I don't need it spelled out in gratuitous detail.

It's not surprising to me that there were and are accusations of plagiarism/creative theft/failure to properly attribute credit, etc. But here's the thing - Nothing is created in a vacuum. Everything is inspired by someone or something that came before. Led Zeppelin took old folk songs, blues songs, jazz songs, songs that I never would have listened to in any form otherwise, and made them into something magical and beautiful and haunting, or whatever it was they were going for. If anything, that only makes me appreciate the source music more, to see what was, and then what they did with it. I know that many of their songs were "inspired" by the work of others, and I'm all for it.

Many people won't agree with me on that, but that's OK. I can forgive a multitude of sins as long as songs like "In My Time Of Dying" and "When The Levee Breaks" get to exist. And all the rest of them, too. Just sayin'.

So. Love Led Zeppelin, always have, always will, despite this book's really strenuous attempts at showing how out of control and shitty they were in a lot of ways. Except one thing, which admittedly does make me rage twitch: John Bonham attempting to "force a flight attendant to have sex with him" should have been called exactly what it was, Mick Wall. Attempted rape. If you're going to show all the warts, don't fucking try to slap a bandaid over the biggest, nastiest one. I had a little bit of a rage aneurysm when I heard that shitty boys-will-be-boys euphemism. Fuck all of that. He was a great drummer, legendary even, but he tried to rape someone. Not OK. Not then, not when this was published 10 years ago. Not now.

That being said… it doesn't change the music for me. I can't let knowing that John Bonham had serious alcoholism and uncontrollable behavior and really piss-poor judgement while drinking take away from what they made together. Was he a "bad" person? I don't know. I think probably not. His behavior was erratic but I think he needed help, and didn't get it, and it ultimately killed him. Honestly, it's a tragedy, but I think that at that time, mental health issues were for schizophrenics and everything else was nothing a good kick in the ass or a few (dozen) drinks couldn't solve. But… hindsight is 20/20 as they say. From the things I heard in this book, he was not okay, but it was written off as boys being boys and having well-earned fun that just got out of control.

One more note on the "drama", before I move on to the structure of this book. Jimmy Page was apparently into the occult. If you care. I don't. Apparently it was a big deal back in the day. Meh. I don't care if he held a ritual to summon a demon and used his super esoteric knowledge to benefit his talent or career. If so, good for him. The way that this book went on and on and on about the OCCULT made it feel like it was written that way throughout the book, in all caps, like this should be a scandalous shocker that would make people do a double-take and question everything they ever enjoyed about the band - COULD THEIR SUCCESS BE THE RESULT OF DEVIL WORSHIP??! Do not care. Believe in whatever you want, Page. You do you. If he is not hurting anyone, then what the fuck does it matter what the man believed in? Someone eating a piece of bread and claiming that it's the body of Christ, drinking a bit of wine as his blood, and that's all totes normal, apparently, but change the symbolism and suddenly THOSE beliefs become a thing that needs to be hashed and rehashed again and again, even going so far as to make the occult the closing idea of the book, rather than, ohhh… I dunno, something about Led Zeppelin. There's even a biography chapter of Aleister Crowley. Because… reasons?

Let's move on.

I was totally going to do a parody of the chapter intros here, but the thought of actually trying to imitate second person narration made me throw up in my mouth a little bit. So, nah. I won't do that. It was annoying enough to get through it each chapter, every chapter (except one, because CONSISTENCY!) over and over again. And on top of that, it was written in a really annoying British Limey/Cockney/Something? Slang that made me want to puncture my eardrums with a pencil. Not because of the accent - let's be clear that Simon Vance could read to me in Klingon and I would soak that shit up - but because of the pretentiousness of it. UGH.

Not to mention that except for the very first few intros, I never knew who I "was" at any given time in these sections. Was I Page? Was I Plant? Was I some random groupie? Jones now? Who the fuck knows. I think I have MPD after listening to this book.

AND on top of that, these intros just kept rehashing (AGAIN!) the same origin story over and over and over. At 84% into the book I had a rant in a voice to text note in the Audible app about the fact that we were EIGHTY-FOUR PERCENT into the book and still fucking talking about Page's previous band, The Yardbirds, Jimmy Page's vision for The New Yardbirds (which would become Led Zeppelin) and how much of a risk it was, yada yada yada. WHY are we still talking about that at this point? WHY, when Led Zeppelin's time together and Bonham's life itself was coming to an end, were we STILL ON THE FORMATION OF THE BAND?? LET'S MOVE THE FUCK ON ALREADY!

SO annoying.

Dammit. As I've gone along, I've talked myself into rating this book way lower than I ever would have thought. But, aside from Simon Vance, and the FIRST time through the origin story, I don't have anything positive to say about this. I love the music, but this book, in the end, didn't enhance it in any way. It just made me aware of the fact that in this case, the music is enough. I don't need or want anything more.