Rock & roll fans are unified by Led Zeppelin, even though they are passionate about their genre and take distinctive approaches to appreciating it. Regardless of the branch of rock music someone likes, they seem to be integrally linked by an adoration for Robert Plant, John Paul Jones, John Bonham and Jimmy Page, who took what rock music was and added several levels to it.
The secret behind Led Zeppelin was both their talent as individuals and their ability to merge those talents to create something cohesive and exciting. Each band member was a pioneer in their own right, instrumentally, but they were also able to integrate their creative output so that Led Zeppelin’s sound celebrated their talent whilst also being accessible to the everyday listener.
Naturally, there was controversy surrounding their prominence, as the bands were frequently accused of stealing tunes and plagiarising other musicians. Zeppelin didn’t always try to pass off tunes as their own, but they weren’t always generous in giving credit to the musicians who actually wrote the songs. Although it wasn’t unusual for a Led Zeppelin album to have covers, the artists’ identities were kept a secret.
Take their song “Baby, I’m Gonna Leave You,” which was recorded by Joan Baez for her album Joan Baez in Concert. Anne Bredon wrote the original version of the song in 1950. Led Zeppelin just attributed the song as a “traditional” folk tune, refusing to reveal who wrote it. The band didn’t give Bredon credit until the 1980s, which was 20 years after their version of the song was made available.
The idea seems to be that they could get away with not providing full credit if they cover tunes subtly and only use snippets of the song rather than the entirety. Some claim that Led Zeppelin merely appropriated the folk parts of “Baby, I’m Gonna Leave You,” hence their initial claim of credit was accurate.
Many people are now reluctant to acknowledge Led Zeppelin’s contributions as a result of this. Their song “The Girl I Love” is another instance of them stealing ideas and passing them off as their own. It’s a fantastic song that has all the fire that Led Zeppelin was known for, but the band members didn’t write it alone. They may have elevated the song to a new level with their collective skill and individual brilliance, but portions of the lyrics were lifted from an earlier song.
So, who actually wrote ‘The Girl I Love’
The Girl I Love She Got Long Black Wavy Hair is the full title of the song, which was recorded by the BBC for a special recording session on June 16, 1969. When the tape reappeared a few years later, fans could listen to the amazing Led Zeppelin song. While the song’s instrumentation is wholly original and the by-product of each member’s effort, the lyrics are stolen from a separate tune.
They are a change to the lyrics to “The Girl I Love She Got Long Curley Hair,” a blues song from 1929. The parallels are evident, and Robert Plant took use of them while crafting the words for this song. Though it’s a well-loved song, this is just another instance of how Led Zeppelin would appropriate someone else’s work and stage small-scale conflicts to pass it off as their own. Blues musician Sleep John Estes from the 1920s was the creator of the original song.