The Led Zeppelin song that Robert Plant composed to express his frustrations with Jimmy Page.

      It was a tense period for the band...

      Led Zeppelin had a tremendous impact on the music scene, achieving worldwide fame and helping to establish rock as a genre. However, in 1975, the band encountered several difficulties, including a serious car accident on the Greek island of Rhodes that left lead singer Robert Plant with significant injuries.

      Plant, already grappling with the stresses of life on the road, was feeling the strain of lengthy tours that kept him away from his young family for extended durations. Nevertheless, Jimmy Page and Led Zeppelin's renowned manager Peter Grant were keen to push the band forward and began planning a new album.

      Finally released in early 1976, ‘Presence’ presents a contrasting experience — a return to their hard rock foundations, it prominently features Jimmy Page’s electric guitar. Lacking the keyboard embellishments and acoustic complexity of previous albums, it delivers a heavier sound than any Zeppelin record since their first.

      Lyrically, however, it conveys a sense of unhappiness. “Tea For One” expresses Plant’s feelings of isolation while away on tour, but it takes a darker turn with the intense “Hots On For Nowhere.”

      The lyrics target his bandmates, revealing his frustrations about being pressured into recording. Some of the vocals on ‘Presence’ were recorded while he was in a wheelchair, conveying an intense emotion when he sings, “I was burned in the heat of the moment,” and “The timing is right growin’ older / I’ve got friends who will give me fuck all.”

      In a conversation with the Guardian, Robert Plant remarked that the song “is absolutely wracked with pain,” adding, “The fraternity of the band at the time was stretched to breaking point.”

      Long after the band disbanded, Plant brought a new girlfriend to a house on the Welsh border. Reflecting on the ‘Presence’ period, he played “Hots On For Nowhere” to demonstrate the darkness he experienced: “The two of us sitting in a little room on the Welsh borders, and me telling her: ‘If you want to know what I was like at the end of Zeppelin, really, this was it.’ After listening, she said, ‘I don’t want to be left alone in a room with that. It’s too much.’ That’s what it was in the end: too much.”