Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, and the Ailing West

Western culture is rotting, and Rock and Roll is not the cause

Photo by Diego Catto on Unsplash

Recently I watched two musical performances in quick succession, and the experience gave me new insight into the cultural rot that has been present in the West for at least 50 years.

First was Anna and Nancy Wilson of Heart playing Led Zeppelin’s “Stairway to Heaven” in 2012. The performance is incredibly moving. Heart has always done the best covers of Led Zeppelin songs and here they even are joined by Jason Bonham, the son of Zeppelin’s late drummer John Bonham, giving an added emotional weight to the experience.

Covering one of the pinnacle songs in rock history is quite the undertaking, but the Wilson sisters prove they are up to the task. They begin on their own, one voice and one guitar, but are slowly joined by more and more instruments and voices. The growth of the ensemble matches the song’s escalation towards its crescendo and as the band gallops out of the guitar solo, a full choir appears resulting in a musical eruption that somehow lasts for the entire final verse. The capstone of this musical explosion is Anna Wilson belting out, “To be a rock, and not to roll,” with such power that I am left breathless each time I hear it.

Despite my praise for the performers, the most fascinating part of this video is not found on the stage, but in the balcony of the theatre where the surviving members of Led Zeppelin are sitting. Watching Robert Plant, Jimmy Page, and John Paul Jones savor this performance of their most famous song is at once both poignant and uplifting. Plant’s reaction is particularly interesting. If the lore is to be believed, he does not enjoy “Stairway to Heaven”, but at this performance he seems to have tears in his eyes. It makes me wonder what he is thinking and feeling. Is he genuinely moved by this performance of a song he never cared for, or, aware of the cameras around him, is he playing the part he knows the viewers will want to see? If the emotions on his face are not genuine, then his acting is masterful.

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The second performance I watched was Black Sabbath’s “War Pigs” at the band’s final concert in 2017. The power of this rendition cannot be overstated. This is the last time the fathers of heavy metal will ever play one of their greatest songs in front of an audience. I am not the biggest Black Sabbath fan, but the magnitude of this moment held me riveted to the screen the first time I watched the video.

The fans in attendance are obviously aware they are the last group of people who will ever have the chance to join in as this song is played live and they take full advantage of their opportunity. “War Pigs” seems designed for crowd participation and the audience roars each and every one of the lyrics back at the band. Many in the crowd are moved to tears and as I watch I find it hard not to be swept up in their emotions even though I had previously felt lukewarm toward this song. I was always drawn more to the frenetic pace of “Paranoid”, the crunchy groove of “N.I.B.”, and the flashy sound of frontman Ozzy Osbourne’s solo work.

My only explanation for overlooking “War Pigs” is I was not listening carefully. I thought it was just another heavy metal song about demons and the occult. In my defense, the intro sounds like it could be played in Hell’s waiting room and lyrics like “witches at black masses”, “death and hatred to mankind”, and “Satan laughing spreads his wings” sound like generic, sophomoric, evil imagery. But once I began listening to all the lyrics instead of just a few fragments, the message and power of the song became undeniable. “War Pigs” is about the warring class. It is about the people who are willing to spread death for their own personal profit and the punishment that awaits them in the next life. “War Pigs” is not just an antiwar song, it is the antiwar song.

I would not blame you for wondering why these two performances are so connected in my mind, but that is because I have withheld one piece of information about Heart’s cover of “Stairway to Heaven.” The performance was at the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C., meaning the audience consisted primarily of politicians and the politically connected. The crowd was filled with war pigs. This leaves me with two incredible musical performances that create two vastly different emotional experiences.

During “Stairway to Heaven” I find myself utterly captivated when the camera shows the stage or the members of Led Zeppelin. But when the camera turns to a member of the political elite in the audience, I am reminded that this event is being used, as too many events are, to disguise a group of blood-soaked monsters as members of a dignified and proper elite class. I spend the entire video alternating between feelings of awe and revulsion. This experience stands in stark contrast to the constant and almost savage exhilaration of “War Pigs.” The vocals, guitar, bass, and drums of Black Sabbath all seem to seethe with outrage at the war pigs who inspired the song and the crowd’s passion serves to magnify this righteous fury. This guy at 2:03 is my favorite example. The result of all this is that whenever I watch “Stairway to Heaven” at the Kennedy Center, I feel immediately compelled to put on “War Pigs.” I love the Wilson sisters’ performance, but seeing the political elites and their sycophants enjoying that same performance leaves me with a feeling of uneasiness that demands to be balanced by a viewing of “War Pigs.”

Finally, this brings me to how these two performances further reveal the rot that unfortunately lies within Western culture. A middle-aged man should be looking back on the rebellious heroes of his youth and realizing he was admiring the wrong people. The drug-addled rock stars were never actually worthy of adulation or imitation. The real heroes are the respectable people who wear suits, go to meetings, and work to improve the world. But I, a middle-aged man, look back and see the exact opposite.

Ozzy Osbourne lived a life of legendary debauchery. His drug-induced antics were so extreme that even Tommy Lee of Motley Crue, no stranger to perversion himself, was shocked when they toured together. But Ozzy does not have an abundance of innocent blood on his hands. You cannot find footage of him earnestly saying he thinks half a million dead Iraqi children is a price worth paying. He has not instituted policies leading to open-air slave markets in Libya. What Ozzy has done is use his talents to create a piece of art railing against the horrors of war that is as relevant today as it was during the days of Vietnam.

Clearly, Ozzy is no saint, but whose sins are worse? Who is more worthy of our admiration? Who is more worthy of our contempt? If a man whose name is the second result when you Google “who is the prince of darkness” is a better person than every American President of my lifetime, then something is rotten in Western culture. Perhaps even rotten to the core.

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In the Remnant is written by James Wile. His work has been featured at The Libertarian Institute and Antiwar.com. You can follow him on Twitter/X @intheremnant.