Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Desert Island Discs
Presented by Lauren Laverne
Singer and songwriter best known as the lead vocalist of the rock band Led Zeppelin.
Eight records
April 1960, I was twelve, nearly twelve, and already something was knocking on the door, and that April, Eddie Cochrane was killed in a car wreck in Chippenham. And he recorded loads and loads of really provocative, very well-produced songs. And this one now, it's called Pink Peg's Flax. And I really wanted to know what the whole deal was around the corner. And can I have some?
As you mentioned, Birmingham Town Hall had several years of these remarkable visitations from musicians like Muddy Waters, Howland Wolf, Little Walter. So I've chosen this record because Howland Wolf to me is like the century of all of it all. He's magnificent, strong, powerful. And the lyrics, I think, a lot came from Willie Dixon. Make his songs absolutely otherworldly. So this is a Howland Wolf song called I Ain't Superstitious.
I'd go to work and I'd I'd put bitchmen on West Bromwich High Street, drive the dumper and stuff and and then at the end of it all I'd end up in the Casa Bamboo. In West Bromwich with a bunch of West Indians, a lot of Jamaicans, just listening to the most deep scar. And this was one of my evertime favourites, Teenage Scar by Baba Brooks.
It's a guy called Muhammad Rafi. It's just insane. Listen to this orchestration and stuff. It's just magnificent. And the food was great.
The keepsakes
The book
The Penguin Book of Earliest English Anglo-Saxon Poetry and Verse
Various
I'd like to take the Penguin Book of Earliest English Anglo-Saxon poetry and verse, these magnificent riddles that you would have to try and fathom out. And I've had this book since I was 21, and I won't look at the answers in the back.
The luxury
A basket with pictures of Black Country homing pigeons
A beautiful wicker basket with three pairs of black country homing pigeons... Well, I'll just have a basket with some pictures of Black Country homing pigeons with the hope that some birdie will go, he's over there.
In conversation
Presenter asks
Tell me a bit about your mum.
She was suitably and joyously combustible. She was pretty. She was like a big fizzy bottle of pop. What would set her off? What kind of, she had a lot of energy then? Yeah, I think she just sometimes, a bit like me, she didn't really know how to harness it quite. But she loved song and she had a great voice and she used to dance around the house, twirling and swirling and singing these remarkable songs, whether it would be Kathleen Ferrier or some skyboat song. And she was hysterical. She was very funny, good black country stock. I remember one Christmas we were all sitting around with my grandfather as well and my sister and we were opening presents at mom and dad's and I recorded the whole adventure of the rustling of the paper and the shock and the surprise and I played it back. And my mum said, Who's that? I said, well, it's it's your mum. She said, That can't be right. I had elocution lessons. So it was really good fun. She was great.
Presenter asks
What kind of man was your dad?
He was a real, real gentleman. He was always concerned that I shouldn't go too close to whatever this thing is that I'm immersed in. He was of the generation that you would meet people and they would say, Yeah, hmm, well, it's an interesting conversation with you, young man. What do you do? And I'd say, well, you know, I sing. And they'd say, yeah, but I mean, what do you do? You know, so my dad was slightly concerned that I would throw away an education.
The recording
Timestamps play the recording from that turn
Speaker 3
BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, Podcasts.
Presenter
Hello, I'm Lauren Laverne and this is the Desert Island Discs podcast. Every week I ask my guests to choose the eight tracks, book and luxury they'd want to take with them if they were castaway to a desert island. And, for rights reasons, the music is shorter than the original broadcast. I hope you enjoy listening.
Presenter
My castaway this week is the singer and songwriter Robert Plant. He spent a lifetime at what he calls the sharp end of making music, on stage, out front, first conquering a global audience with Led Zeppelin. He fell in love with rock and roll in the blues clubs of the Black Country in the West Midlands, where he grew up, deciding early on that he would dedicate his life to it, much to the disapproval of his parents, who thought he'd do better as an accountant. But in the end, they had to concede he did alright for himself. Led Zeppelin sold hundreds of millions of albums, their live shows were legendary, and the off-stage mythology around them created a hedonistic blueprint that still impresses fans and horrifies critics. It was also the catalyst for their breakup. When drummer John Bonham died as a result of alcoholism, aged just 32, the group disbanded. Losing his bandmate and childhood friend had a profound effect on Robert. A new era began, one of restless exploration and constant innovation. In the decades since, his creative journeys have earned him commercial success and critical acclaim, including multiple Grammys, as well as the satisfaction of playing in the heartlands of the music he loves with some of the world's best artists. Of his Led Zeppelin years, he says, I experienced unimaginable creative peaks and vivid adventure, often played out against a relentless emotional landscape. There were no instructions inside the box we opened. Robert Plant, welcome to Desert Island Discs. Thank you.
Presenter
Robert, your appetite for musical adventure is as healthy as ever. You've collaborated with a range of artists, from Pearl Jam to Phil Collins, Portershead and and beyond, most recently with the bluegrass singer Alison Krause. After so many years being the frontman, how did you adapt to being one half of a duo? I think you first sang together in 2004 for a tribute concert to the blues musician Ledbelly.
Presenter
We started to rehearse in a tiny hall and everything was going swimmingly.
Presenter
Until we stopped performing this song called In the Pines, and she said.
Presenter
What do you really want me to do? Shall I just play fiddle? I said, well.
Presenter
No, no, can't you sing a harmony? She said, Well, I could if you sang the same thing twice.
Presenter
It was just, I never even thought about it. Of course, as well as taking on songs by other artists and traditional pieces, you write your own material too. What's your starting point for a new track, usually? I write all the time I carry a book with me. The front side of the book has got detail and reminders of what I've got to do. And then I flip the book over and anything that I see or feel or find slightly ironic or ridiculous or funny or really sad, I just write them down. So my imagination is like a tinderbox. I just suddenly I hear another element or another contribution within.
Presenter
whatever zone that I'm in, and it just lights me up.
Presenter
Well, Robert, it's time to get into your discs. Let's have your first. What's it gonna be? April 1960, I was twelve, nearly twelve, and already
Presenter
Something was knocking on the door, and that April, Eddie Cochrane was killed in a car wreck in Chippenham.
Presenter
And he recorded loads and loads of really provocative, very well-produced songs. And this one now, it's called Pink Peg's Flax. And I really wanted to know what the whole deal was around the corner. And can I have some?
Presenter
Pink peg slack
Speaker 3
I will dance.
Presenter
And last night, gonna dig a show. When I passed the display window, a great department stuff. But I look inside this window, man, it's all filled up with bricks.
Presenter
Uh
Robert Plant
Down here near the bottom was a crazy pan And pink peg slack
Robert Plant
Yeah.
Speaker 3
Yeah, what I need him for is k
Robert Plant
And
Speaker 3
Well, how can I go cat without?
Speaker 3
Could be easy easy pig pig slash
Speaker 3
Yeah.
Presenter
Well, I walked up to a cell Pink Peg Slacks by Eddie Cochrane. So let's go back to the beginning then. Robert Plant, you were born in 1948 in West Bromwich. Your father was also called Robert. He was a civil engineer, and your mother, Celia, was a homemaker. You've described her as quite a character. Tell me a bit about your mum. She was.
Presenter
Suitably and joyously combustible. She was pretty. She was like a big fizzy bottle of pop. What would set her off? What kind of, she had a lot of energy then? Yeah, I think she just sometimes, a bit like me, she didn't really know how to harness it quite. But she loved song and she had a great voice and she used to dance around the house, twirling and swirling and singing these remarkable songs, whether it would be Kathleen Ferrier or some skyboat song. And she was hysterical. She was very funny, good black country stock. I remember one Christmas we were all sitting around with my grandfather as well and my sister and we were opening presents at mom and dad's and I recorded the whole adventure of the rustling of the paper and the shock and the surprise and I played it back.
Presenter
And my mum said, Who's that?
Presenter
I said, well, it's it's your mum.
Presenter
She said, That can't be right. I had elocution lessons. So it was really good fun. She was great. And what about your dad? What kind of man was he?
Presenter
He was a real, real gentleman. He was always concerned that I shouldn't go too close to whatever this thing is that I'm immersed in.
Presenter
He was of the generation that you would meet people and they would say, Yeah,
Presenter
Hmm, well, it's an interesting conversation with you, young man. What do you do? And I'd say, well, you know, I sing. And they'd say, yeah, but I mean, what do you do? You know, so my dad was slightly concerned that I would throw away an education. Yeah, I mean, the generation gap at that time, like you say, it was quite large. But you had some interests in common, you and your dad. I know that he was a keen cyclist. And I think it was a hobby that you shared, is that right? Yeah.
Robert Plant
It was quite
Robert Plant
Right.
Presenter
Yeah, my father, um, before the war, he did an act several tours of the the British Isles. He had this uh deal about cyclocross. So he would cycle, then he'd carry his bike, he'd take photographs on the top of the most amazing
Presenter
chains of hills and across the Pennines and into Cumbria.
Presenter
And um as I got older, I used to cycle alongside him and uh
Presenter
He taught me how to conserve my strength and how to I started track racing, which was fixed wheel racing. And it was really good. And I mean, really, in a way,
Presenter
To share the same fascination and attraction to something when you have this generational thing, which was radical then. I mean, not so much now between me and my kids at all. But it did help us to discuss the meaning of life together as well.
Robert Plant
Two
Presenter
Time for some more music then, Robert Plant. Disc number two. What are we gonna hear?
Presenter
It's called Serenade by Mario Lanzick. When I was invited to do this programme, I started looking at something that I would say wouldn't be Nellie the Elephant, it wouldn't be the runaway train, it would be something that made me just stop and feel the goosebumps. And this was the first song that did that to me.
Robert Plant
It's gone forever lost in a dream.
Presenter
Name of you
Presenter
Uh
Robert Plant
I hear your voice in the wind that stirs
Speaker 3
I see your face in the stars that shine aboard.
Presenter
Mario Lanter and Serenade. Robert Plant, I know that you've described him in Little Richard as a thunderbolt moment and you are a huge Elvis fan. Can you remember when you first heard him?
Robert Plant
Yeah.
Presenter
It was around the time when Han Dog came out, so I might have been about eight or nine. And I was fortunate enough to.
Presenter
Cross paths with him. He came to see you, right? No, no, we went to see him several times. We went to see him.
Robert Plant
I'm going to see him.
Presenter
But he wanted to he wanted to meet you after the gig.
Robert Plant
Okay.
Presenter
He was talking to us and he said, well, how do you get on with sound checks and stuff there?
Presenter
Let's upload and didn't really
Presenter
do a lot of things like that. But when we did try out new equipment, whatever it might be, I'd want to sing an Elvis song. He said, Well, what is it? And I said, It's a song called Love Me.
Presenter
Which is like: treat me like a fool, treat me mean and cruel, but love me so.
Presenter
talk about things and say good night and walk down the corridor. And suddenly I'm hailed and I turn around and um he's Elvis is swinging out of the room on the door frame and does an Elvis to me, which we all do.
Presenter
And start singing this song so the two of us are like the ultimate pub singers that night.
Presenter
For a moment. Yeah. So you went to grammar school, Robert, in Starbridge, and it was around that time that you started buying American blues records. You were going to gigs, often at the town hall, and some of your friends were in a band called The Jurymen. In 1963, they gave you a big break. What happened? The singer got sick, and the gig was on, so they said, you know the songs, get up and let's do the gig.
Presenter
How did it feel being up there looking out at the audience?
Presenter
I was very nervous and didn't look at the audience at all, not until about 1968.
Presenter
You took your time. So you started performing with other local bands, but you weren't doing so well at school, and later you dropped out of a business studies course. What made you decide to call it quits at college and pursue music full time?
Presenter
Um, I had no choice, just had to just go wherever it took me.
Presenter
How did your parents react?
Presenter
Yeah.
Presenter
Well, they weren't hugely.
Presenter
over the moon about it. So I didn't go back for a while. But then when I did, my mum got the china out and put her pearls on and bought a cup of tea. And my dad used to tell people he's he's gone off the rails. And then about eighteen months later,
Presenter
He's on the rails.
Presenter
It's very funny.
Presenter
It's time for some more music, Robert. What's disc number three today, and why are you taking it with you?
Presenter
As you mentioned, Birmingham Town Hall had several years of these remarkable visitations from musicians like Muddy Waters, Howland Wolf, Little Walter. So I've chosen this record because Howland Wolf to me is like the century of all of it all. He's magnificent, strong, powerful. And the lyrics, I think, a lot came from Willie Dixon. Make his songs absolutely otherworldly. So this is a Howland Wolf song called I Ain't Superstitious.
Presenter
Well, I ain't superstitious.
Presenter
Black cat just crossed my trail.
Presenter
Well, I ain't superstitious.
Presenter
Wooden black cat just cross my f ⁇
Presenter
Don't sweep me with no broom.
Presenter
Howlin Wolfe with I Ain't Superstitious. So Robert Plant, in 1965 you joined a local blues band called The Crawling Kingsnakes. You were the lead vocalist. Were you a confident singer at the beginning? No.
Presenter
When did that start to come? How long did it take? Probably until about 1970, 71.
Presenter
Because I knew when Zeppelin began that John Bonham and myself coming from the Black Country, we we were big fish there, but we were suddenly alongside John Paul Jones and Jimmy Page, who were really seriously accomplished, far more mature and pretty well
Presenter
Versed in all the different elements of melody and construction and stuff like that.
Presenter
So it was kind of daunting in a way.
Presenter
Although I really wanted to be around excellence, when I came head to head with it, I was really.
Presenter
Um int kinda intimidated.
Presenter
You'd met the drummer John Bonham before in 1965. I think he was in the audience at a Crawling King Snakes gig. What were your first impressions of him?
Presenter
Well, he was big. I mean, I don't mean physically big. He just had his way about him. And um he said, Look, if you're going somewhere really special, he said, but you'll never get there without me.
Presenter
But and I mean he was right. Yeah, John and I walked a million miles together
Presenter
So Jimmy Page had recruited you and John to join him and John Paul Jones in Led Zeppelin. You started rehearsing. How quickly did you realize that together the four of you had something really special?
Presenter
We just kicked off with a piece and in a small room, not much bigger than this, really in this con studio here, and it was just overwhelming.
Presenter
It was like all the doors and the windows in the house of cards were open and now we just blew right through the the walls of the cellar and right through the world.
Presenter
I remember we borrowed John's mum's car and went down in an old Anglia van and came back up from the rehearsals and all the way up we went.
Presenter
What was that?
Presenter
And that's what it was.
Presenter
It's time for disc number four, Robert. And I think this one evokes memories of your time before Led Zeppelin's success, when you'd left home and you were working as a laborer at that point. Yeah, so there I was, far from home and definitely far from talented living around the place. I met this magnificent lady who would later become my wife. She was from a great...
Presenter
Anglo-Indian family who were really, really, they gave me a home.
Presenter
I'd go to work and I'd I'd put bitchmen on West Bromwich High Street, drive the dumper and stuff and and then at the end of it all I'd end up in the Casa Bamboo.
Presenter
In West Bromwich with a bunch of West Indians, a lot of Jamaicans, just listening to the most deep scar. And this was one of my evertime favourites, Teenage Scar by Baba Brooks.
Robert Plant
Yeah.
Speaker 3
Uh
Robert Plant
Yeah.
Robert Plant
Uh
Speaker 3
Uh
Robert Plant
Uh
Speaker 3
Okay, okay.
Presenter
Teenage Scar by Barbara Brooks. So Robert Plan. After Led Zeppelin's first American tour in 1968, it all took off lightning fast for the band and with success came excess. Now the band at the time epitomized unbridled rock and roll hedonism. There were stories of sex, drugs, rock and roll, T V's in the swimming pool, motorbikes indoors. How do you look back on those exploits and on that mythology around you now?
Presenter
Well
Presenter
The whole deal with sometimes
Presenter
uh very tough to be a part of and um what do you mean by that i think the intensity and the momentum of
Presenter
What we were experiencing and the sort of lack of structure was very difficult. We were all maturity was on its move, on gamboling along, and it was we were flexing one way or the other. And I was I found a lot of it difficult to some of the intensity and stuff, I found it quite tough. So you were adjusting. Life was changing too fast for you?
Presenter
I don't know really because I can't really get my head around it now. I mean, I'm so far away from. I mean, you can read bits and pieces media-wise, but they're so far removed from what it was. And so, I guess the best thing to do is to just imagine that a lot of it is incredible exaggeration. And most importantly, we were able to go home and get new perspective and grow up.
Robert Plant
Done.
Presenter
How were you able to balance being a husband and father with the life of a rock star?
Presenter
Well, pretty good, I think. And it sounds a bit glib, but I always longed for those those hills.
Presenter
My parents had always taken me to a beautiful little cottage in the middle of nowhere near Machanpret and I took my family there. There was so much of the old ways still pulsing in those hills and it's uh I was drawn to it.
Presenter
Time for disc number five. What have you chosen?
Presenter
This is a track called Ohio by Crosby Stills, Ash and Young. This is a song that was written at the time following an event at Kent State University in Ohio where four students were shot by the authorities. And this is the song that was written, which will remind us forever how it can go nastily, badly wrong.
Robert Plant
Yeah.
Presenter
Ten soldiers and mixing coming. We're finally on our own This summer I have
Speaker 3
Never dramatic For there in Ohio
Speaker 3
Got it again.
Robert Plant
Down to ring!
Robert Plant
Go into the party as well!
Robert Plant
Should have been done long ago.
Robert Plant
Are you
Presenter
Crosby Stills Nash and Young and Ohio.
Presenter
Robert Plant, the next few years were a difficult time for you. In 1975, you and your family were involved in a car crash while you were on holiday in Rhodes, and you all suffered terrible injuries. You yourself ended up spending many months in a wheelchair. It must have had a huge effect on you as a person, as well as, of course, you know, putting your performing career in jeopardy at that point.
Presenter
One minute everything in the garden is magnificently beautiful and the next minute you are lying in the dust.
Presenter
That's how old was I? I was twenty seven then. And um, obviously, every day, every week, every month with a family and a couple of kids and stuff, there's the beauty of that is way more paramount really than
Robert Plant
Look at
Presenter
Swung in it forever and ever and ever.
Presenter
It was a difficult time and it continued to be difficult, Robert. Just two years later, your son Carrick died. He'd contracted a stomach virus. He was just five years old, and you were on tour in America when it happened, so you weren't there.
Presenter
Uh
Presenter
It's definitely another.
Presenter
moment when you go, okay, so I came back, gathered what was left of
Presenter
the shards of the family and, um, try to put it
Presenter
Together. Didn't really want to do anything after that.
Presenter
Yeah.
Presenter
Oh, wow, Trey
Presenter
But you know time is time momentum and encouragement and kindness from everybody especially John Bonham He was so he and his wife were really good for me and Maureen at the time and it was he helped get you through
Robert Plant
Yeah.
Presenter
Yeah.
Presenter
You considered walking away from the band at that point and you had you had another plan. You were going to go down a completely different avenue, I believe, at one stage and and become a teacher.
Presenter
Well, the kids were, Carmen and Carrick were at the Steiner School in Starbridge. And I thought I could do much better than...
Presenter
than be a singer. How far did you go in exploring that? I went to down to Forest Row where the Steiner Center is and walked around it and then
Robert Plant
Down there.
Presenter
I got back and John Bonnam was at the gate going, come on.
Presenter
I said, no. He said, get in the car.
Presenter
Get in the car
Presenter
He was driving a six-door Mercedes with a with a chauffeur's cap on.
Presenter
taking me to the pub in the back so that he could never get nicked on the way home'cause the cops would always go, Ah, poor driver, he's driving some twerp around.
Presenter
He was magnificent. Ah, love him.
Presenter
Yeah.
Presenter
Let's have some more music, Robert. It's number six. What are we going to hear next and why have you chosen it? My wife's family was in a little street in West Brom and there was a Gujarati family who lived the other side of the doorway and they were busy cooking dal and frying up onions and spices and listening to this music. So I used to knock on their door.
Presenter
Instead of the family's door, and they'd bring me in and give me a bowl of a ghee-laden doll, and I'd just sit and listen to this music.
Presenter
It just epitomises the extravagance of colour and goodness knows what else about this era of Indian Bollywood music.
Presenter
It's a guy called Muhammad Rafi. It's just insane. Listen to this orchestration and stuff. It's just magnificent. And the food was great.
Robert Plant
Zahaga Desho me Hazan.
Robert Plant
Mere sha sita ra rah go mehar dam.
Robert Plant
Mere skasithi.
Presenter
Raha Gadishong Mi Hadam by Muhammad Rufi.
Presenter
Robert Plant, in nineteen eighty your friend John Bonham died of alcohol poisoning. That must have hit you so hard on on top of everything else that you'd already been through.
Presenter
Yeah, it certainly did, yeah.
Presenter
I drove down with him on the day of the rehearsal and I drove back without him. And he was an incredible character and so encouraging for me, despite the fact he was always sending me up and taking the Mickey out of me and all that. And I loved him desperately. Yeah. You once said about him, he's omnipresent in my time. Do you still miss him? Do you still feel him with you?
Presenter
Yeah, I do. I I mean because we were really were kids.
Presenter
And we grew up not having a clue about anything at all, just the two of us.
Presenter
sort of loud, confident and mostly wrong. And it was really good. We we covered most of the squares on the board as time went by, so I do miss him.
Presenter
You were both just just thirty two when he died. I mean, do you think it was inevitable after that that that the band wouldn't be able to continue?
Robert Plant
Yeah.
Presenter
Absolutely.
Presenter
The whole circumstances were had become more and more alien to me as time had gone on.
Robert Plant
That's time.
Presenter
I thought it was time, obviously time, to do something for myself.
Presenter
I know you don't want to get back together permanently, so we're not going to ask that question about the reunion, but I do want to know how you feel looking back at what you achieved with that group, the group that you call the tumultuous, amazing combination of friends.
Presenter
For days and weeks I never even go anywhere close to listening to the past.
Presenter
And then suddenly I turn a corner and in the middle of it all I find myself absolutely glued to a piece of music that I was partly responsible for and I am absolutely beside myself with pride at being able to be amongst that huge
Presenter
Mind bomb that was the creativity of the group.
Presenter
It's time for your next piece of music, Robert, and I know it takes you back to 2003. You went to a music festival in the desert just north of Timbuktu.
Presenter
You cannot imagine for a second.
Presenter
How that felt going from Birmingham Airport to Paris to Bamako.
Presenter
And then getting on a little plane with somebody from Blue Peter or some kid who was doing some checking out the lifestyles of kids in Timbuktu, getting off and going north. But in the middle of it all, I saw some and heard some of the most remarkable music. A magnificent band from Mali called Tinara Wen were playing, and Umu Sangare and Ali Fakature. And this is Diarabi from the album that he made with Raikuda.
Presenter
Before we hear it, I've got to ask you about how you got to sing another song with Ali Fargatori during that trip. What happened?
Presenter
There was a little fire lit in a scoop in the night sky. I mean, you've never seen a night sky like it.
Presenter
And Alifaka is singing just singing so quietly and
Presenter
Playing the guitar and singing these really soft melodies and Ali Faka smiles at me and he nods to me and I think to myself.
Presenter
Ooh.
Presenter
This is interesting.
Presenter
What on earth am I going to do? And I went, well, the meter of the song is very livable. It's beautiful. So I quickly came up with a rash decision to sing the B-side of a drifter song from 1959 called, Who's Gonna Kiss You When It's Kissing Time? Kissing Time?
Presenter
It was just so cool and he said to me, We know your voice. If we were a bird in the tree and we could see nothing but leaves, we'd know it was you.
Presenter
Kerry Landa Rabbi.
Presenter
Getting light up to me
Presenter
Kerila
Presenter
Jarra B with Ali Fokatore and Ry Kuda. Robert Plant, you moved back to the UK in twenty fourteen, not far from where you grew up. You're a lifelong supporter of Wolverhampton Wanderers. What do you love most about being a fan? It was always a place to escape to.
Presenter
But I never was quite so knowledgeable and intense about it as I am now. And um probably one of the main things along with all that is the songs. And I shuffle away from the ground in the rain, in the dark, and uh go past some guys. All right, Rob. All right, Rob.
Presenter
Alright, Rob's still doing a bit.
Presenter
And the answer is just about, yeah. Yeah, keep it up. Yeah, yeah. That's all you need.
Presenter
The familiar faces that uh make you smile.
Presenter
I know that you've been looking back a bit recently, Robert. During lockdown, you arranged your own archive and that's got details of music projects and tours and personal items like letters and photos. I wonder what surprised you the most when you kind of revisited it or rediscovered it after not seeing it for many years?
Presenter
Perhaps the big, big one of all is I found an unopened letter from my mum.
Presenter
From 1968 and it was before we got
Speaker 3
Uh
Robert Plant
Awesome.
Presenter
The yard birds were zeppelin together and so I opened the letter.
Presenter
her mum's handwriting and all that. She said, Well, dear Robert, yeah.
Presenter
I know you're out there somewhere.
Presenter
Yeah, we've had a word with the accountancy company and your job is still available and your girlfriend would like to know when you're coming.
Presenter
It was just like it was just so beautiful.
Presenter
Robert, I'm about to cast you away to our island. I wonder what approach you'll take to living a life cut off from the rest of the world?
Presenter
Not really sure how that's gonna work out, but I can turn my hand to a few things as far as um getting by on my own, I'm sure. I'll get there. I'll be okay. All right, then one more disc before you go. What's it gonna be?
Presenter
I did, as we were talking about earlier on, play with Alison Kraus and that tribute to Lead Bellied. So I'm going to have to play a song that I recorded with her. It's a Doc Watson song and it's really beautiful and it's called Your Long Journey.
Presenter
God's given
Robert Plant
And as here's a hand.
Presenter
Be escape.
Robert Plant
Uh
Presenter
Oh, we must part.
Presenter
And there's the angels call.
Speaker 3
Come and call for you. The pains of grief together. Uh
Robert Plant
Oh my door.
Presenter
Your Long Journey. Alison Krause with my castaway, Robert Plant. So, Robert, I'm going to cast you away to the island. I'm giving you the Bible and the complete works of Shakespeare to take with you. You can take one other book. What would you like?
Presenter
I'd like to take the Penguin Book of Earliest English Anglo-Saxon poetry and verse, these magnificent riddles that you would have to try and fathom out. And I've had this book since I was 21, and I won't look at the answers in the back.
Presenter
So I'm gonna have plenty of time.
Presenter
Will you look on the island? Would you consider it in that scenario? No, I've got pl if I'm going to have a lot of time, I'm going to.
Presenter
make some notes in the sand as to what I think it is and then and then the title come in and I'll have another go at it.
Presenter
You can also have a luxury item, Robert. What's that gonna be?
Presenter
A beautiful wicker basket with three pairs of black country homing pigeons.
Presenter
And then I can keep two, stay with me and be my friends because I've got two outside the window right now where I live. But the other four.
Presenter
We'll have to take notes back to.
Presenter
The black country doesn't say, I'm here, it's okay, don't worry, help.
Presenter
Robert, I'm not allowed. We're not allowed any living beings. Oh, I didn't know that. Nor any communication devices.
Robert Plant
Oh, I didn't know.
Presenter
Ugh.
Presenter
Well, I'll just have a basket with some pictures of Black Country homing pigeons with the hope that some birdie will go, he's over there.
Presenter
So pigeons photographs in a basket to attract other pigeons. Yeah, something that's good. Maybe that will remind me of the beauty of the canals in Tipton.
Robert Plant
Yeah, some
Robert Plant
Oh that
Presenter
Who wouldn't want to be reminded of that, Robert Plants? Absolutely yours. And finally, which one track of the eight that you've shared with us today would you rush to save from the waves if they were threatened by the water?
Presenter
Well, Mario Lanza. Definitely. Because it's so evocative and s it carries so much presence and beauty and it just lifts the crescendos that are
Presenter
I mean, imagine singing along with that until you got it right.
Presenter
Robert Plant, thank you very much for letting us hear your desert island discs. Thank you very much, too. Having fun.
Presenter
I hope you enjoyed my conversation with Robert, and I hope his pigeon folders will do the trick, reminding him of home. We've cast away many other singer-songwriters over the years, including Bruce Springsteen, Yusuf Kat Stevens, and Joan Arma Trading. You can find their episodes in our Desert Island Discs programme archive and through BBC Sounds. The studio manager for today's programme was Sarah Hockley, the assistant producer was Christine Pavlovsky, and the producer was Paula McGinley. Next time, my guest will be the actor and writer Alan Cumming. I do hope you'll join us.
Speaker 3
Alright, here we go OT, 5, 6, 7, 8. Dance. It has the power to connect and to entertain. And in a new series for BBC Radio 4 and BBC Sounds, I explore the iconic dancers who have been doing just that.
Speaker 2
dance, it really I think saved my life.
Speaker 3
Join me, Otima Uuse, as I delve into the lives of the innovators and the mall breakers who have changed dance forever.
Robert Plant
Gene Kelly was this working class guy that I just really connected with that.
Speaker 3
Ultima Boosa's Dancing Legends on Radio 4 and PVC sounds.
Presenter asks
How did it feel being up there looking out at the audience?
I was very nervous and didn't look at the audience at all, not until about 1968.
Presenter asks
How do you look back on those exploits and on that mythology around you now?
Well, The whole deal with sometimes uh very tough to be a part of and um what do you mean by that i think the intensity and the momentum of What we were experiencing and the sort of lack of structure was very difficult. We were all maturity was on its move, on gamboling along, and it was we were flexing one way or the other. And I was I found a lot of it difficult to some of the intensity and stuff, I found it quite tough.
Presenter asks
How were you able to balance being a husband and father with the life of a rock star?
Well, pretty good, I think. And it sounds a bit glib, but I always longed for those those hills. My parents had always taken me to a beautiful little cottage in the middle of nowhere near Machanpret and I took my family there. There was so much of the old ways still pulsing in those hills and it's uh I was drawn to it.
Presenter asks
Do you still miss him? Do you still feel him with you?
Yeah, I do. I I mean because we were really were kids. And we grew up not having a clue about anything at all, just the two of us. sort of loud, confident and mostly wrong. And it was really good. We we covered most of the squares on the board as time went by, so I do miss him.
“She was suitably and joyously combustible. She was pretty. She was like a big fizzy bottle of pop.”
“He was a real, real gentleman. He was always concerned that I shouldn't go too close to whatever this thing is that I'm immersed in.”
“I was very nervous and didn't look at the audience at all, not until about 1968.”
“It was like all the doors and the windows in the house of cards were open and now we just blew right through the the walls of the cellar and right through the world.”
“I drove down with him on the day of the rehearsal and I drove back without him. And he was an incredible character and so encouraging for me, despite the fact he was always sending me up and taking the Mickey out of me and all that. And I loved him desperately.”