This was the first single from Robert Plant’s first solo album, released two years after Led Zeppelin ended with the death of his friend John Bonham. You can hear a man stepping out alone and swinging anyway. The guitars snarl, the beat struts, and Plant sounds restless, like a house half on fire and half still standing. That’s what loss does. It burns one side of your life down and leaves you living in whatever remains. But ashes aren’t the end of the story. God has a habit of building on burned ground. He doesn’t just repair what was lost. He gives beauty for ashes.
“To appoint unto them that mourn in Zion, to give unto them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness; that they might be called trees of righteousness, the planting of the LORD, that he might be glorified.” — Isaiah 61:3 (KJV)
— JC
