#true completeness

CD booklet | No Quarter | 1994 | Page and Plant

LP cover | Led Zeppelin III | 1970 | Led Zeppelin

So my earlier post on the CD cover today broke @incredifishface @imoldgreggory, and I'm just not sure if everyone realizes that the quote is a direct call back to 1970 and LZIII and the first time Robert Plant and Jimmy Page spent time together for a substantial period away from the Zeppelin circus - cultivating their music, and their relationship.

The Ballad of Page and Plant - a love letter to the fandom

When they got back together for a reunion of what they themselves, and several rock journalists, called their marriage, Page and Plant made a film at two significant locations to them. The most obvious being Morocco and the second being Snowdonia in Wales.

Morocco is where Robert and Jimmy traveled alone together for weeks in June+ 1975 following the Earls Court gigs in London and described in Achilles Last Stand. This time together was perhaps the most significant of their Zeppelin era travels as a couple, that start the first time they go to Bron-Yr-Aur cottage in 1970 - 'their Picture of True Completeness' - partly with their female partners and Robert's daughter Carmen, and some roadies, and partly after everyone else fucked off home. So in 1994 when they got back together they filmed at Corris Quarry which is 6.3 miles by road from Bron-yr-Aur cottage and then put the same 1970 quote into their CD.

I mean are you seeing what they want you to see? Jimmy and Robert don't do symbolism by accident. They are famous for the amount of creative control they have over their music and any accompanying product. Zeppelin album covers are legendary for their attention to detail and symbolism and Jimmy Page even went so far as to have quotes from his fave occultist etched into the run off grooves of some early pressings of LZIII. This stuff matters to them.

When Jimmy infamously no-homos Robert in 2014 (speaking to Michael Hann) he calls back to this same quote saying a girl he tried, unsuccessfully ;) to pick up in the street in London, to get her to come to Scotland with him, used this quote to say Jimmy was gay and in a relationship with Robert.

Now much as I want to kill Jimmy over this interview because the only appropriate response in 2014 to questions on such matters of sexuality would be to say 'does it matter?' - I sometimes think 'Nobody was fucking asking about that quote Jimmy - why are you drawing attention to it?' 2014 was not the best year between Page and Plant - Jimmy after a period of seclusion had issued the remasters of the entire Zep back catalogue and they were being a little snippy in the press. What did Robert say? He said he hoped he and Jimmy could travel again to the Atlas Mountains in Morocco (yes, the ones described in Achilles Last Stand) 'before the end'.