Talk:Whole Lotta Love

A 'rewrite'?

As loved as this song may be by Zeppelin notalgists, it was a ripoff, not a rewrite as the article suggests ('The song was a rewrite of the Willie Dixon song "You Need Love"'). This line should be changed, it's highly misinforming. It is even more so misleading since the article mentions that the band was succesfully sued by Willie Dixon for copyright infringement. The band was sued because they didn't give credit to Mr Dixon, not because they simply 'rewrote' it. --Bentonia School 10:13, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

Since no one's raised any flags against me, I've gone ahead and changed the article from saying "a rewrite" to "essentially a cover". Thoughts? --Bentonia School 11:54, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

It's neither a cover nor a rewrite nor a completely original song. The music is original (and completely independent from Willie Dixon's song -- Page wrote it long before Plant added the lyrics). It's hard to call something a "cover" when 3/4ths of the songwriters didn't know what they were covering. ScottSwan 20:46, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

On a completely unrelated note, does anyone else hear someone scream a high-pitched, "Die!" at 3:04-3:05, right as the guitar solo starts? It blends in with the guitar part, but I'm almost positive I'm hearing it. It seems to be coming out of the left speaker only. This is a version from the Led Zeppelin Complete Studio Recordings box set, but I'm sure it's there on the original version as well. -Dan 6/29/07

I deleted the sentence that the Willie Dixon song was a later influence on "Custard Pie." The statement is wrong; the lyrics to "Custard Pie" quote from Bukka White's "Bring 'Em on Down," which also appear in "Hats off to (Roy) Harper." DMO 9/23/07.

This isn't a Led Zeppelin song, or a Willie Dixon song. It's originally by Muddy Waters, this article even mentions that he recorded it in 1962! But it glosses over that and says it's a Led Zeppelin song. That's wrong. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.214.115.58 (talk) 00:50, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

You're ALL wrong. It is not a cover, it is not a rewrite, and it is not a rip-off. The lyrics are a rip-off, yes - but the music is certainly not. Apart from a few similarities in the chorus (minor, but there) the music is totally different from Dixons' song, and there's so much different between the two songs that claiming anything other than it being inspired slightly by Dixons' song makes you look like a bit of an idiot. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.112.79.114 (talk) 00:57, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

It is not exactly correct that Led Zeppelin wrote "Whole Lotta Love" even though they claimed themselves as the song author in their original album. Willie Dixon wrote the lyrics. The song was originally entitled "You Need Love" was put out by Muddy Waters in 1962. "You Need Loving" was put out by The Small Faces in 1966. Led Zeppelin recorded "Whole Lotta Love" in 1969.

It's no surprise that Led Zeppelin found a lot of inspiration in American blues. If a person would trace the history and evolution of one of Led Zep's biggest hits, "Whole Lotta Love" back...it's roots are with Muddy Waters. Willie Dixon wrote the lyrics and sued Led Zeppelin in 1985. They settled out of court. On the CD version of the song, Willie Dixon was given his due as the person who wrote the song.

Not only did Led Zeppelin "borrow" the song from Willie, they "borrowed" the vocal styling of the song from Steve Marriott of The Small Faces, who recorded the song four years earlier than Led Zeppelin. -Greg, 04-20-2009 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.3.106.127 (talk) 22:40, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, that's true; and Marriott "borrowed" the selfsame Willie Dixon lyrics for "You Need Loving" - plus a few from Chris Kenner's "Land of 1000 Dances" to boot! Arguably, Dixon should more rightly have sued The Small Faces instead, but the resultant payoff based on record sales would've been infinitely more meagre. None of which is to claim that Dixon didn't have grounds to sue, but the stolen/"borrowed" bits are purely vocal/lyrical. Minus the vocal track, "Whole Lotta Love" would sound pretty original. (And I'm sorry, I know this isn't the proper forum for this discussion, but the door was opened...)Vonbontee (talk) 14:44, 1 August 2009 (UTC)

The article says they settled in 1985, cited with a book. However, episode #6214 of Jeopardy (Thursday, 9/29/2011) has a clue that says 'Willie Dixon had the blues, saying this hard rock group didn't credit him for "Whole Lotta Love"; the sides settled in 1987". Mattack (talk) 06:24, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

On The Run

Should it be noted that the Pink Floyd song On The Run was sampled into the song (around the 3:16 mark)? Gcrossan_(Talk) 21:13, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

reference?? 156.34.142.110 (talk) 21:34, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

Haven't any references (thats why i dint put it in the article), was just listening to the song and recognised the segment Gcrossan_(Talk) 02:39, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

Then that would be a WP:ATT violation. No original research allowed. Wikipedia has too much already. 156.34.213.216 (talk) 03:22, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

It would be really weird if it was, seeing as On the Run was released nearly 4 years later. Adrianrorheim (talk) 14:00, 14 November 2008 (UTC)

Mystery Train

The article states the following at the moment:

"Lyrics from "Mystery Train," written by Junior Parker and Sam Phillips (and recorded by Elvis Presley), also appear during the instrumental break."

Now, for the life of me I cant find any references to the lyrics of Mystery Train within Whole Lotta Love. Can this either be referenced for removed? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.42.249.100 (talk) 15:25, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

Theremin Solo?

It currently says there is a "theremin solo" in the jazzy/psychedelic interlude... I always assumed it was just Jimmy playing around with his guitar? Adrianrorheim (talk) 14:24, 14 November 2008 (UTC)

"The last song..."

" It is also the last track the band ever played as whole" - this statement doesn't make much sense: does it mean that it was the last song the band ever performed, at their last ever gig? And if so, was that before they split up, or at their reunion gig? I'm afraid I'm not conversant enough with their set-lists to re-write the sentence Dom Kaos (talk) 17:58, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

Jeff Buckley?

Should it be mentioned that Singer/songwriter Jeff Buckley was reported to have sang the words to the song as he was swimming moments before vanishing under the water? The song being related to a famous singers death could possibly be worth mentioning.