“It was some cynical aside about a woman getting everything she wanted all the time without giving back any thought or consideration. The first line began with that cynical sweep of the hand and then it softened up after that.”Robert Plant (68)

“It’s a shame to see these young chicks bungle their lives away in a flurry and rush to compete with what was in the old days the good time relationships we had with the GTOs [Girls Together Outrageously – Ed] and people like that. If you listen to “Sick Again” the words show I feel a bit sorry for them. “Clutching pages from your teenage dream in the lobby of the Hotel Paradise/ Through the circus of the L.A. queen how fast you learn the downhill slide.” One minute she’s 12 and the next minute she’s 13 and over the top. Such a shame. They haven’t got the style that they had in the old days…way back in ’68.”Robert Plant (515)

“We do ‘Sick Again’ which is about ourselves and what we see in Los Angeles, but it’s a pity you can’t hear the lyrics properly live. The lyrics say: ‘From the window of a rented limousine, I saw your pretty blue eyes. One day soon, you’re gonna reach sixteen, painted lady in the city of lies.’ As much as it’s pretty, it’s sour really. That’s exactly what LA stands for. Joni Mitchell summed it up best when she called it ‘City of the Fallen Angels.'”Robert Plant (184)

“Let me tell you a little story behind the song “Ten Years Gone” on our new album. I was working my ass off before joining Zeppelin. A lady I really dearly loved said, “Right. It’s me or your fans.” Not that I had fans, but I said, “I can’t stop, I’ve got to keep going.” She’s quite content these days, I imagine. She’s got a washing machine that works by itself and a little sports car. We wouldn’t have anything to say anymore. I could probably relate to her, but she couldn’t relate to me. I’d be smiling too much. Ten years gone, I’m afraid.”Robert Plant (515)

“I went to Morocco. It was the first time I started gettin’ away to other lands without an entourage of people or as a member of a band. It was just over a year ago, and the nearer I got to the Sahara, this atmosphere beckoned me to open my eyes in another way. I wrote the first verse before we had any music, I just started to write a poem: “Let the sun beat down upon my face, and stars to fill my dreams/I am a traveller of both time and space, to be where I have been.” The people in the mountains, the Berbers and the people beyond there, have all these dances to Pan and I knew they were there. Occasionally you could ride into the hills and see these people watching as you went by and you got this fantastic feeling, as if you were going through a no-man’s land between Kashmir and India. There’s an area there, a no-man’s land between the borders, where all the Bhutan warriors sit with their horses and muskets, waiting for the tourists. Anyway, after 6 o’clock at night, nobody’s allowed from India to Pakistan and there’s about three miles of road they just don’t let you through, but you can see these circles of guys on horseback… they’re bandits. That really fires me off, because since I really got into what I’m doing, I’ve always flown the Jolly Roger, y’ know? I’ve always had a skull and crossbones flying above me, but always with a twisted smile. I really dig adventure. So lyrically something like ‘Kashmir’ extends that. And at the end of the song I’m almost satisfied as if I’ve just done the whole trip. To me, it’s just like painting pictures, like ‘Stairway To Heaven’.”Robert Plant (185)

“We weren’t gonna make another ‘Communication Breakdown’, but I thought ‘In The Evening’ was really good, and I thought parts of ‘Carouselambra’ were good, especially the darker dirges that Pagey developed. And I rue it so much now, because the lyrics on ‘Carouselambra’ were actually about that environment and that situation. The whole story of Led Zeppelin in its latter years is in that song…”Robert Plant (220)