Robert Plant Once Revealed His Favorite Led Zeppelin Song and No, It’s Not ‘Stairway to Heaven’ originally appeared on Parade.
The surviving members of Led Zeppelin are not always the most forthcoming when it comes to interviews, but every now and then one of the iconic musicians lets the world in on their true feelings and point of view. When Dan Rather interviewed Robert Plant in 2024, Plant addressed a variety of questions about his time in the band, and was uncharacteristically open about lot.
While not salacious, one long-time question was answered when Plant was asked if the 1975 track “Kashmir” off of their album Physical Graffiti was his favorite song.
“Yeah, I think it probably… Well, it was a great achievement to take such a monstrously dramatic musical piece and find a lyric that was ambiguous enough, and a delivery which was not over-pumped,” Plant explained. “Just, it almost was like the antithesis of the music was this kind of lyric and this vocal delivery that was just about enough to get in there, you know.”
The song itself was inspired by a trip Plant took in 1973 through the “wastelands” of Southern Morocco down a “dilapidated” road with “seemingly no end to it,” according to American Song Writer.
“I wish we were remembered for ‘Kashmir’ more than ‘Stairway To Heaven,’” Plant once told Louder Sound writer Mick Wall. “It’s so right; there’s nothing overblown, no vocal hysterics. Perfect Zeppelin.”
Related: Why This Former Led Zeppelin Member Will Never Play ‘Stairway to Heaven’ Again
The song is remembered by the band as “powerful” and not “grandiose” which they accomplished through the meticulously crafted piece that involved an orchestra-level composition.
Wall reported that during their last disastrous U.S. tour Plant talked about the impact the song had on him.
“I think I will go to Kashmir one day, when some great change hits me and I have to really go away and think about my future as a man rather than a prancing boy.”
Robert Plant Once Revealed His Favorite Led Zeppelin Song and No, It’s Not ‘Stairway to Heaven’ first appeared on Parade on Aug 18, 2025
This story was originally reported by Parade on Aug 18, 2025, where it first appeared.