Writing
Jimmy Page and Robert Plant wrote this piece in 1970 whilst on a retreat at Bron-Yr-Aur cottage, Wales. Page explained:
- "That's the Way" was written in Wales. It was one of those days after a long walk and we were setting back to the cottage. We had a guitar with us. It was a tiring walk coming down a ravine and we stopped and sat down. I played the tune and Robert sang the first verse straight off. We had a tape recorder with us and we got the tune down".
In an interview he gave to Mojo magazine in 2010, he elaborated:
- I can still remember exactly where we were when we wrote That's the Way. Robert was seriously affected by the situation and being able to write it down and make a statement was great. That wouldn't have happened if we hadn't been there.
The original working title of the song was "The Boy Next Door". According to Stephen Davis's biography of Led Zeppelin, Hammer of the Gods, the song's lyrics reflected Plant's views on the ecology and environment. There are also several lines in the song which reflected on the way Led Zeppelin was sometimes treated in America during their early concert tours, when they were sometimes spat on, had guns drawn on them and were heckled at airports and on planes. They were also troubled about the violence that they had seen policemen visit upon youth who protested the war in Vietnam, as well as upon the fans at their shows, particularly during their spring 1970 tour of the United States:
- I can't believe what people saying,
- you're gonna let your hair hang down,
- I'm satisfied to sit here working all day long,
- you're in the darker side of town.
Read more about this topic: That's The Way (Led Zeppelin Song)
Famous quotes containing the word writing:
“There is nothing on earth more exquisite than a bonny book, with well-placed columns of rich black writing in beautiful borders, and illuminated pictures cunningly inset. But nowadays, instead of looking at books, people read them. A book might as well be one of those orders for bacon and bran.”
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950)
“I am writing for myself and strangers. This is the only
way that I can do it. Everybody is a real one to me,
everybody is like some one else too to me. No one of
them that I know can want to know it and so I write
for myself and strangers.”
—Gertrude Stein (1874–1946)
“A man who publishes his letters becomes a nudist—nothing shields him from the world’s gaze except his bare skin. A writer, writing away, can always fix himself up to make himself more presentable, but a man who has written a letter is stuck with it for all time.”
—E.B. (Elwyn Brooks)