Day After Day is an ambitious attempt to write about a song every day in 2024 (starting on Jan. 4).
Other Arms (1983)
It can't be easy to go solo after being in one of the biggest bands ever. Certainly, there have been artists who have done well on their own, like Paul McCartney, John Lennon, Stevie Nicks, Phil Collins or Peter Gabriel. Then there are others, like Mick Jagger, who have never been able to climb out of the shadow of their bands.
When Led Zeppelin broke up in 1980 after the death of drummer John Bonham, it was unclear what would happen next. Things almost went in a predictable direction when Zep guitarist Jimmy Page ran into Chris Squire, former bassist of Yes (who were broken up at the time) at a party in late 1980 and decided to put a band together. Called XYZ (ex-Yes-Zeppelin), the group would have included Page, Squire, former Yes drummer Alan White and keyboardist Dave Lawson. Squire was the main songwriter, but Page felt the band needed a good frontman and reached out to his former Zep bandmate Robert Plant, who went to a rehearsal in February 1981 but decided to pass on the invite. As it turned out, Squire and White ended up reforming Yes, with some of the XYZ songs turning up on their hit comeback album 90125.
Meanwhile, Page did some soundtrack work and Plant pursued a solo career, although he briefly considered becoming a teacher. Plant put together a band that included guitarist Robbie Blunt, bassist Paul Martinez and keyboardist Jezz Woodroffe and recorded his solo debut Pictures at Eleven, with Phil Collins playing drums on five of the eight songs and Cozy Powell on two. Released on Zeppelin's label Swan Song, the album certainly had echoes of Zeppelin on some of its songs and sold well, hitting #5 on the Billboard 200 and #2 in the U.K.
For 1983's The Principle of Moments, Plant sought to broaden his sound from the typical hard rock belters of his past. Most of the band from his previous album remained, with Collins again drumming on five of the eight songs and former Jethro Tull drummer Barriemore Barlow on the other two. The lead single, "Big Log," was very unlike Zeppelin, a mellow exploration featuring just Plant, Blunt and Woodroffe providing synths and programming a drum machine and hand claps. It was a big hit for Plant, going to #20 on the Billboard Hot 100 and getting tons of airplay on rock and adult contemporary radio, as well as MTV. The second single, "In the Mood," was also a mellow-sounding hit, going to #4 on the Billboard Top Tracks chart and #39 on the Hot 100.
The label had wanted "Other Arms" as the first single, but Plant resisted, not wanting to be pigeonholed as a hard rock singer. And indeed, "Other Arms," the lead track on the album, was more in that direction, featuring big drums from Collins, a strong riff from Blunt and powerful vocals from Plant. The song was never released as a single, but after the success of "Big Log" and "In the Mood," radio stations began to play "Other Arms" and it topped the Billboard Mainstream Rock chart, displacing the Police's monster hit "Every Breath You Take."
"Lay down your arms/Oh, now baby let me sleep at night/Lay down your arms baby, oh/I'll make everything alright/Words you been using, hurting me so/Some day you're gonna regret/Way friends are talking, guess you'll never know/This battle aching in there/Lay down your arms, baby/When the deal is done/Lay down your arms, child/Used to be your only one."
Plant turned out to be right, of course. He broadened his appeal and The Principle of Moments went to #8 on the Billboard 200 and #7 in the U.K. without him having to recreate Led Zeppelin.
"That thing you're using is hurtin' me bad/What do you hope to achieve?/Fussin' and fightin' is leaving me sad/That's not the way it should be/So if I find a love/Oh, if I find a way/Oh, we'll find a dream/Oh, if I find a way/You know that I will, yes, you know/Lay down your arms/Oh please, release me, let me go/Lay down your arms, baby/Now surrender to me, don't you go."
After touring for the album with Collins and later Little Feat's Richie Hayward on drums, Plant put together an all-star band called the Honeydrippers that included Page, Nile Rodgers, Paul Shaffer and Jeff Beck and recorded an EP of 1950s songs. The project spawned two huge hits, with "Sea of Love" going to #3 on the Hot 100 and "Rockin' at Midnight" reaching #25; the EP itself went to #4 on the Billboard 200 chart.
Plant's next album, 1985's Shaken 'n' Stirred, was more synth-driven and sold less well, but its lead single "Little by Little" cracked the top 40. Plant had avoided playing Zeppelin songs on this first few tours, but he started to embrace his past on his next album, 1988's Now and Zen. He was no longer working with Blunt, instead teaming with keyboardist Phil Johnstone and guitarist Doug Boyle. Page guested on the songs "Heaven Knows" and "Tall Cool One"; the latter also featured samples of a few Zeppelin songs and hit #25 on the Hot 100. Plant leaned into the hard rock for this and his next album, 1990's Manic Nirvana. His next album, Fate of Nations in 1993, was inspired by late '60s acts like Moby Grape and Jefferson Airplane.
Plant and Page then re-teamed to make No Quarter: Jimmy Page and Robert Plant Unledded, which featured the pair revisiting Zep classics and recording new material in Morocco with Egyptian musicians; it was both an MTV special and released as an album. The duo then toured as Page and Plant and made one more album, 1998's Walking to Clarksdale, with Steve Albini as producer. Plant then returned to his solo career, playing with a folk-rock band and then a band called Strange Sensation, with which he released an album of blues and folk remakes and then 2005's Mighty ReArranger.
In 2007, Plant and bluegrass star Alison Krauss released a duets album called Raising Sand that was a monster success, hitting #2 on the Billboard 200 and winning multiple awards, including five Grammys in 2009. The album crossed genres as it appealed to rock, Americana, country and folk audiences.
While all that was going on, Plant, Page and John Paul Jones reunited (along with John Bonham's son Jason on drums) as Led Zeppelin to play a benefit concert on December 10, 2007, to commemorate the life of music exec Ahmet Ertegun. Audience-recorded videos flooded YouTube with snippets of the show, but an album and video release of the entire show wasn't released until 2012. The performance led many to wonder if a Zeppelin tour would follow, but it never did; many attributed that to Plant not wanting to do it. While he was able to pull off the traditional hard rock hollering for the one show, no doubt he probably felt he couldn't do that night after night. The one concert they did was excellent, so there's that.
Since then, Plant has continued to release albums and tour, with bands he put together called Band of Joy, the Sensational Space Shifters and Saving Grace, mixing blues rock with world sounds and folk. In 2021, he released another album with Alison Krauss that again performed well, reaching #7 on the Billboard 200.
I saw him in 1990 on the Manic Nirvana tour in full rocker mode and again in 2010 on the Band of Joy tour and they were both excellent but very different performances. At age 76, Plant is still active, doing what he wants and doing it well.
