The Battle of Evermore

Writing The song was written by Jimmy Page and Robert Plant at Headley Grange while Page was experimenting on John Paul Jones's mandolin. Page explained in 1977 that Battle of Evermore' was made up on the spot by Robert [Plant] and myself. I just picked up John Paul Jones's mandolin, never having played a mandolin before, and just wrote up the chords and the whole thing in one sitting." Allusions to The Lord of the Rings The song, like Led Zeppelin's "Ramble On" (Led Zeppelin II) and "Misty Mountain Hop" (also Led Zeppelin IV), makes references to J. R. R. Tolkien's fantasy novel The Lord of the Rings, with "The Dark Lord rides in force tonight and time will tell us all" in line 4, "The drums will shake the castle wall, the Ringwraiths ride in black" in line 18, and mentions of war and swords (line 13), shooting with a bow (line 19), magic runes (line 20) and "the dragon of darkness" in line 24. The J. R. R. Tolkien Encyclopedia states that the three songs make "direct references to Gollum, Mordor, the Ringwraiths, and events described in The Silmarillion and Lord of the Rings". The Oxford Handbook of Music and Medievalism treats the song as "fantasy medievalism", seeing allusions to multiple features of Tolkien's Middle-earth. ==Personnel==

According to Jean-Michel Guesdon and Philippe Margotin: • Robert Plant – vocals • Jimmy Page – mandolin, acoustic guitar • John Paul Jones – mandolin (?), acoustic guitar (?) • Sandy Denny – vocals ==Live performances==

and Robert Plant perform "The Battle of Evermore" at Denver's Red Rocks, 21 June 2008 "The Battle of Evermore" was played live at Led Zeppelin concerts during the band's 1977 North American Tour. For these live performances, Jones sang Denny's vocals and played acoustic guitar whilst Page played mandolin. Sometimes John Bonham sang Denny's vocals along with Jones. The British rock band Fairport Convention performed "The Battle of Evermore" with guest vocalists Plant and Kristina Donahue at Fairport's Cropredy Convention on 9 August 2008. Plant and Alison Krauss regularly performed "The Battle of Evermore" on their tour of US and Europe in spring and summer 2008 in promotion of their 2007 collaboration album Raising Sand. ==Other versions==

An instrumental version of the song is featured on the companion audio CD on the remastered deluxe 2CD version of Led Zeppelin IV, titled The Battle of Evermore (Mandolin/Guitar Mix From Headley Grange), recorded on 29 January 1971, at the Rolling Stones Mobile at Headley Grange with engineer Andy Johns. It is much shorter than the original, with a running time of 4:13 rather than 5:51. Page and Plant recorded a live version of the song in 1994, released on their album No Quarter: Jimmy Page and Robert Plant Unledded. sang Denny's vocal part. ==Accolades==

(*) designates unordered lists. ==See also==