{"id":701521,"date":"2026-06-13T10:15:12","date_gmt":"2026-06-13T10:15:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/701521\/"},"modified":"2026-06-13T10:15:12","modified_gmt":"2026-06-13T10:15:12","slug":"the-1970-led-zeppelin-song-jimmy-page-insisted-was-his-alone","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/701521\/","title":{"rendered":"The 1970 Led Zeppelin song Jimmy Page insisted was his alone"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Jimmy<\/p>\n

Credit: Far Out \/ Open Culture<\/p>\n

Sat 13 June 2026 7:48, UK <\/p>\n

The path that Jimmy Page took from a young session professional to a world-famous musician led him down a circuitous path. Two of his most famous bands,\u00a0Led Zeppelin<\/a>\u00a0and The Yardbirds, share rock and roll DNA. <\/p>\n

With that, a number of Page\u2019s songwriting credits are contested because they rather blatantly rip off old blues songs. Page\u2019s direction wasn\u2019t always clear, but once he strapped on a guitar and took to the stage, nobody could deny the power and genius that he was conveying.<\/p>\n

Even so, Page\u2019s legacy has always carried a degree of complexity. While his innovations as a guitarist and producer helped redefine rock music, questions surrounding authorship and musical borrowing have followed him throughout his career, particularly regarding some of Led Zeppelin\u2019s most celebrated songs.<\/p>\n

Page was the man that ran Led Zeppelin from the inside. He assembled the group, picking up old session pal John Paul Jones while handpicking Robert Plant and John Bonham along the way. Given his leadership, Page\u2019s name appears in the songwriting credits for nearly all of the band\u2019s music, barring some later-period songs where he was dealing with a debilitating heroin addiction. There was no Led Zeppelin without Page, and as the band\u2019s creative director\/producer\/guitar hero, he proved it with every album.<\/p>\n

His influence extended far beyond simply playing guitar. Page oversaw arrangements, production decisions and the band\u2019s overall artistic direction, helping transform Led Zeppelin into one of the most distinctive and commercially successful acts in rock history.<\/p>\n

\"Jimmy<\/a>Credit: Far Out \/ 2025 Paradise Pictures Ltd<\/p>\n

There are only two songs in the Led Zeppelin catalogue that credit Page alone as the song\u2019s writer. One is \u2018Dazed and Confused\u2019, which should\u00a0appear as an immediate red flag<\/a>. \u2018Dazed and Confused\u2019 was originally written by folk singer Jake Holmes, with Page rearranging the track and adding some of his own lyrics. Holmes later sued and received an \u201cInspired by\u201d credit, along with royalties. The other song credited solely to Page is \u2018Tangerine\u2019 from\u00a0Led Zeppelin III, but that also has some problems.<\/p>\n

The case became one of several legal disputes that fuelled wider debates about Led Zeppelin\u2019s relationship with blues and folk traditions. While the band frequently transformed their influences into something new, critics have long argued that some of those influences were not always adequately acknowledged.<\/p>\n

\u2018Tangerine\u2019 began its life as \u2018Knowing That I\u2019m Losing You\u2019, a song recorded by The Yardbirds in the late 1960s. Page composed the song\u2019s chord progression, but the first version of the track had lyrics written by vocalist Keith Relf. Page later claimed that he had written his own lyrics when the song transformed into \u2018Tangerine\u2019 a few years later. \u201cI\u2019d written it after an old emotional upheaval, and I just changed a few of the lyrics for the new version,\u201d Page claimed in Led Zeppelin: The Official Biography.<\/p>\n

However, Relf\u2019s former bandmates in The Yardbirds assert that some of Relf\u2019s lyrics from \u2018Knowing That I\u2019m Losing You\u2019 eventually made their way into \u2018Tangerine\u2019. When Page assembled the 2017 compilation album\u00a0Yardbirds \u201968, he included \u2018Knowing That I\u2019m Losing You\u2019 but wiped Relf\u2019s vocals from the final mix, making it impossible to compare the versions and raising suspicions that Page did so on purpose to avoid giving Relf credit for \u2018Tangerine\u2019.<\/p>\n

The controversy surrounding \u2018Tangerine\u2019 may never be fully resolved, but it highlights a recurring theme in discussions about Page\u2019s career. His greatest achievements often emerged from reshaping existing ideas into something larger and more ambitious, yet questions over where inspiration ends and authorship begins continue to shadow parts of his remarkable catalogue.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

ADD AS A PREFERRED SOURCE ON GOOGLE \"\"\/ <\/a> The Far Out Led Zeppelin Newsletter<\/p>\n

All the latest stories about Led Zeppelin from the independent voice of culture.
Straight to your inbox.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Credit: Far Out \/ Open Culture Sat 13 June 2026 7:48, UK The path that Jimmy Page took…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":549314,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[53],"tags":[83931,2616,88,19813,19810,216],"class_list":["post-701521","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-83931","tag-1970s","tag-entertainment","tag-jimmy-page","tag-led-zeppelin","tag-music"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/701521","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=701521"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/701521\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/549314"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=701521"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=701521"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=701521"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}