While the field of critical study of the music of hard rock band Led Zeppelin continues to develop, few critics have considered the band’s political statements through its music. Much of the existing critical work deals with gender, with Scott Calef affording the band’s politics only a footnote in the book Led Zeppelin and Philosophy: All Will Be Revealed: “Although Zeppelin’s band members did speak out in interviews against police brutality, racism, and intolerance in America, for the most part, politically as musically, they maintained their independence.”
Through analysis of songs and the album’s material presentation, I argue in this paper that Led Zeppelin’s 1971 album ‘Led Zeppelin IV’ does make a political statement through its juxtaposition of an idealized vision of the Middle Ages and a capitalist and industrialized modern world. Led Zeppelin’s medievalism in ‘Led Zeppelin IV’, often considered by fans in terms of esotericism and the occult (areas I do not engage here), is heavily influenced by J.R.R. Tolkien and notions of a Middle Ages that is nearly prelapsarian in its gestures toward Celtic magic and preindustrial landscapes. While certainly inaccurate, this vision of the Middle Ages serves as a foil to the image of the modern world that the album presents – namely one of intergenerational conflict, youthful ennui, industrial ruin, racism, and capitalism. Ultimately, I argue that Led Zeppelin participates in an understanding of the Middle Ages as a “simpler time,” one that should be yearned for in the face of modern political unrest.
About the presenterBriana Wipf
I am a PhD student at the University of Pittsburgh studying medieval and early modern literature. I received my master’s degree from the University of Montana in 2017.