A Book Of Led Zeppelin

SATAN MADE LED ZEPPELIN GREAT

So I'm sure at least some of you are aware that many people used to speculate - and a few still do - that Led Zeppelin made some sort of evil deal with the devil in exchange for immediate fame, musical skill and success.

...

I mean what other explanation was there for them being so successful in such little time? Skill? Charisma? Good music? No, can't be. It must be the work of Satan.

I hope you all realise that was sarcastic.

Now, many musicians have been accused of dealing with the devil. 1930s blues musician Robert Johnson - who influenced almost every rock star in some way or another - was said to have met Satan at a lonely crossroads at midnight to sell his soul for mastery of the guitar; apparently Johnson went from being an embarrassingly bad guitarist to a highly skilled one oddly quickly, so who knows, they could be right. Hm. Either way, Led Zeppelin weren't the first or the last musicians to have been thought to have dealt in the dark arts. But there seems to be a great deal more attention for this with Zeppelin than most others.

It doesn't take a genius to work out why. They didn't exactly help themselves; Jimmy Page did nothing to deny or hide his interest in the occult, and they even each chose an occult symbol each to put on the album cover of Led Zeppelin IV, only giving those who accused them of satanic activities more 'proof'. Why would they do that? I'm starting to think they didn't care much what these people thought...

But then - in the same album none the less - more proof! In 1982, a televangelist (anyone who knows what that us, please let me know) called Paul Crouch, who clearly had nothing better to do with his time than sit around and play old rock records backwards, discovered that if you play Stairway To Heaven backwards - specifically the 'bustle in your hedgerow' section which, yes, may be a little nonsensical - then a Satanic message is revealed! Robert Plant seems to be heard singing,

"Here's to my sweet Satan,
The one whose little path would make me sad, whose power is Satan,
He will give those with him 666,
There was a little toolshed where he made us suffer, sad Satan,"

Whilst this is pretty creepy - listen to it actually playing on youtube, it's even weirder then - the thing is, chances are it's all just a really strange coincidence. When you hear it, the words are very distorted; it may simply be that because Paul Crouch was listening for satanic messages, that's exactly what he heard. People's brains fill in the gaps for them. The same thing happens with us, years later. We know what we expect to hear, so we hear that rather than what in reality is most likely just some vague noise that sounds like words. And like Robert Plant himself said when questioned about the matter, "Who on Earth would have ever thought of doing that?" He makes a good point. Who would've?

Although to be fair, if anyone had then it would've been Led Zeppelin.

Honestly, I'm not sure if it matters either way. We'll probably never find out the truth; either it's a very bizarre coincidence or they did it deliberately, which is unlikely. If they did do it deliberately, then so what? It's not like the words actually summon the devil itself, or make people possessed. If it was deliberate, it would most likely have been a joke within the band about all the occult and devil rumours that already existed about them. Either way, pretty harmless and nothing to get worked up over.

And come on, if it is true then that is one hell of an achievement. I mean, if they actually did do it on purpose, they managed to come up with the idea in the first place, then fit a whole hidden message into a song that was only revealed when it was played backwards! That's got to have taken quite a lot of skill, hasn't it? Not to mention painstaking engineering and attention to detail. For that reason, I don't think they would've even bothered. 

Picture: Robert Plant and Jimmy Page onstage