7. THEY HAVE BEEN SUED FOR PLAGIARISM A COUPLE OF TIMES.
Folk singer Jake Holmes claimed he wrote “Dazed and Confused” in a 2010 lawsuit. Holmes opened for The Yardbirds in August 1967. The next day, Yardbirds drummer Jim McCarty and bassist Chris Dreja both bought Holmes’ debut album with his song “Dazed and Confused” on it for the band—which included Page—to practice and play their own version of it. Page was credited as the sole writer of the song when Zeppelin recorded it for their first record.
“Whole Lotta Love” was accused of being based off of Willie Dixon’s “You Need Love” (performed by Muddy Waters) and the Small Faces’ “You Need Loving” only because, as Page once explained, Plant referenced the “You Need Love” lyrics in “Whole Lotta Love.” Dixon was given a co-songwriter credit after a 1985 lawsuit. Plant admitted in a 1990 interviewthat his lyrics weren’t original. “I just thought, ‘Well, what am I going to sing?’ That was it, a nick. Now happily paid for.”
The iconic “Stairway to Heaven” is also a part of an ongoing lawsuit. The band Spirit has claimed the arpeggio opening is too similar to their 1968 instrumental “Taurus.”