Digging Deep with Robert Plant

Digging Deep with Robert Plant has returned! And this is a very special season, as for the very first time the show was recorded live in front of an audience and includes questions set by Digging Deep listeners. But fear not, the music Robert has chosen to discuss, and his own personal stories and recollections are as fascinating and honest as ever. We start with a song that Robert covered in 2002 on his ‘Dreamland’ album; a track that could be described as ‘a post-apocalyptic psych folk classic’ with an incredible history…

29 Palms (or Twentynine Palms as it's sometimes known) is a city in San Bernardino County, California. It nestles next to the Joshua Tree National Park, is home to the world's largest Marine Corps training base, a ragtag community of artists and musicians, and an “electrostatic generator for the purpose of rejuvenation and time travel”. So, yes, It's an Interesting place. It’s also the inspiration behind the song that Robert has chosen to talk about in this episode…

Some songs weave in and out of history, surfacing with different singers, in new versions and interpreted in different ways; each adds something new to the layers of meaning around the original. The beautiful ‘Song to the Siren’ is one of them. Originally written by folk hero Tim Buckley, over the years it has been recorded by Sinéad O'Connor, Sheila Chandra and This Mortal Coil. Robert added his name to the list of artists in 2002, and here he explains why, and how he approaches performing a vocal for such a famous song…

This episode concerns a song taken from Robert’s 2007 album Mighty ReArranger, but as is often the case with Digging Deep, the path we take starts of with the creation of a track, but we also find ourselves discussing what songs Robert wishes he’d written, how he uses his voice as an instrument, the recent performance of Wolverhampton Wanderers and Willie Nelson’s generous nature when it comes to keeping his fans ‘relaxed’…

So what is the identity of The Tall Cool One? Who is the mysterious figure that provides the title for this 1988 single from his Now and Zen album? Is it Robert? Is it someone else from the 80s era of stadium rock? Where does that riff come from? And how did Robert go about sampling Zeppelin and inserting it into his own music? We have at least some of the answers for you…