![\"Jimmy](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Jimmy-Page-Led-Zeppelin-Far-Out-Magazine-F-1140x855.jpg\")
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(Credits: Far Out \/ Alamy)<\/p>\n
Thu 9 April 2026 6:59, UK <\/p>\n
Jimmy Page<\/a> has made no secret about his inspirations over the years. In truth, it would be pretty hard for him to hide some of them.<\/p>\n Theft, to him, is almost an engine of originality. As he once stated, \u201cI believe every guitar player inherently has something unique about their playing. They just have to identify what makes them different and develop it.\u201d <\/p>\n In his view, you can play the same notes and still sound different. That is pretty much the tenet of individualism that rock \u2018n\u2019 roll thrives on. As Nick Cave once said, \u201cThe great beauty of contemporary music, and what gives it its edge and vitality, is its devil-may-care attitude toward appropriation.\u201d<\/p>\n He adds, in a very Page-like spirit, \u201cEverybody is grabbing stuff from everybody else, all the time. It\u2019s a feeding frenzy of borrowed ideas that goes toward the advancement of rock music \u2013 the great artistic experiment of our era.\u201d There\u2019s no issue with that.<\/p>\n However, the trouble starts when that appropriation is a little bit too direct, and the original creator is left in the shade. You could argue that this was the case when it came to the Led Zeppelin classic<\/a> \u2018Dazed and Confused\u2019, which Page lifted from poor old Jack Holmes. The anthemic slacker track might have altered the course of counterculture, but its shadowy backstory proves far more questionable than the end result.<\/p>\n Led Zep\u2019s classic was released in 1969, but the tale stretches back two years prior to that. At the time, Page was in the Yardbirds, and they were headlining a show at the Village Theatre, the famed venue which later became the Fillmore East in New York City. <\/p>\n That night, Jake Holmes opened the show and blazed up his stoner anthem \u2018Dazed and Confused\u2019 (listen below). Page was peeping behind the curtain and found himself flawed by the sludgy folk gem that staggers and saunters in a style that preserved the zeitgeist in amber. It was \u2018stoner rock\u2019 before there was even such a thing.<\/p>\n Pairing psychedelia and the traditional sensibilities of the Byrds, Holmes honed a track that seemed to defy any known genre. Crammed with modular dirge, the sound alone would\u2019ve been something that piqued the muse of Page, but the way the melody waxed and waned, perfectly intwined with the fractious, somnambulant lyrics, made the song sound like a cornerstone of the counterculture movement.\u00a0<\/p>\n Page was seemingly so stirred he got his notebook out. In the years that followed, the Yardbirds would perform their own version but never record the track. Holmes never had a hit with it, and the anthem seemed to be forgotten. At least that was the case until Led Zeppelin\u2019s debut album arrived.\u00a0<\/p>\n There, in plain sight, on a record that would go on to sell over 10million copies, was that fateful song from the Fillmore. As Holmes would later bemoan, \u201cThat was the infamous moment of my life when \u2018Dazed and Confused\u2019 fell into the loving arms and hands of Jimmy Page.\u201d<\/p>\n \u2018Infamous\u2019 is the operative word here because what happened afterwards has always placed a problematic asterisk on Page\u2019s legacy. The guitarist obviously changed the track, but even with these tweaks, the source is still self-evident. Yet, when Led Zeppelin released the song, there was no mention of Holmes\u2019 long-forgotten version in the credits.\u00a0<\/p>\n He kindly wrote to the group asking for a co-credit, but he never received a reply. All the while, his own career faltered, and he moved into writing jingles and tunes for commercial purposes \u2013 songs that were a world away from \u2018Dazed and Confused\u2019. Rather fittingly, he would also write for others, such as the great Harry Belafonte, but his own day in the spotlight seemed to just be that one night in New York under the watchful eye of Page.<\/p>\n He didn\u2019t fuss much in the wake of his blanked letter, and Led Zeppelin\u2019s version took on a life of its own. Richard Linklater would even borrow the title for his coming-of-age movie set in 1976, proving how seamlessly the song captured the zeitgeist to come. All the while, almost nobody knew that Holmes was the true originator.<\/p>\n In 1990, when murmurings of a primitive version of \u2018Dazed and Confused\u2019 were beginning to surface, Page distanced himself from the whole thing when Musician Magazine asked him about it. \u201cI don\u2019t know about all that,\u201d he explained. \u201cI\u2019d rather not get into it because I don\u2019t know all the circumstances. What\u2019s he got \u2013 the riff or whatever?\u201d<\/p>\n Adding, \u201cI haven\u2019t heard Jake Holmes, so I don\u2019t know what it\u2019s all about anyway. Usually, my riffs are pretty damn original.\u201d In truth, he also had the arrangement, title, and lyrical melody.<\/p>\n However, in June 2010, he finally got Led Zeppelin to pay attention to him when he sued the band, citing copyright infringement and the matter was swiftly resolved out of court. However, the bigger question that the whole debacle raises is just how rife plagiarism<\/a>, or to put it kindly for Page, unreferenced liberal appropriation was in the days before internet sleuths could catch you at it? What other works out there should rightfully cite someone else as the originator?\u00a0<\/p>\n Holmes was, to some extent, he got his undisclosed settlement and didn\u2019t even have to go to court in a suit for it, but there\u2019s no doubt whatsoever that the motif of this crooked is resticted to Page alone. How many other Holmes are there out there who deserve their moment in the sun?<\/p>\n<\/p>\n![\"Jimmy](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/Jimmy-Page-Border-Far-Out-Magazine-1024x768.jpg\")
<\/a>(Credits: Far Out \/ Alamy)<\/p>\n
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