The song might not have been: Zeppelin in the age of helicopter parents
So a month ago my wife, in one of those heroic moves toward permanent marital stability, bought us tickets to the Jason Bonham Led Zeppelin Experience. The show tapped directly into my untouchable love of Zeppelin. I was awed not just by the talent of Bonham and his band but the emotion driving this tribute. Meandering home afterward, thinking about the grainy videos of Jason as a child that were part of the show, I wondered what if Zeppelin had tried to launch today, in the age of helicopter parents.
First off, Led Zeppelin’s lead singer, the wild, wooly, poetic Robert Plant, demonstrated a love of singing when he was small. According to one biography, his dad, even though he disapproved, drove the teenage Plant to early jams. In 2010, dad would not just drive but likely would sit and watch, and however disapproving of the rock-and-roll lifestyle his youngster was pursuing, would make sure his young wailer was being treated fairly by the meager crowd. How would Plant have cultivated his rebellious, enigmatic musical persona while dad sipped a Shirley Temple in the back of the room and then laid on the guilt on minivan rides home: “My dear Robbie, I understand the good times, but what are all these bad times you’re singing about? What did mother and I do wrong?” Too many rides like that, and a dispirited Plant might have had the germ of inspiration eradicated, following through on his accounting apprenticeship instead. I suppose he’d still be good for the occasional Black Sabbath song at local watering holes on karaoke night, where he might also sit and wonder, but, alas, only to himself, what is and what should never be.
Drummer John Bonham reputedly made his own drum kit at five. His dad apparently rigged up a mock snare to help the young banger, yet his parents didn’t buy him his first full set until he was 15. 15! Nowadays, the moment that boy had tapped a rudimentary rhythm on a bath salts can, his parents would have rushed out to buy an armful of books about how to cultivate his obvious talent. On birthday three, Santa would have delivered a fully loaded youth drum kit. He would have begun intensive lessons, with his agent-parents plowing ahead to secure the finest instructors and seeking out elite academies. Fame and fortune would have beckoned. Forget “Four Sticks.” By 19, Bonham –not Bonzo, for how do you get that nickname in a scrubbed-clean world of structured musical predictability? — would probably never want to look at a drum stick again.
John Paul Jones, Zeppelin’s bassist, mandolin player, and keyboardist, grew up in a musical household. He started playing piano at age six, learning from his dad, who was a pianist and arranger for big bands. But six? In our day and age, no parent would have wasted that kind of time. The young John Baldwin (like Bonham, John Paul Jones too would have likely never picked up his performing name) would have been on the talent show circuit well before he was a wise, seasoned six-year-old. By then he’d have been on stage for years, clambering through reality shows like “My Kid’s Bow Tie is Shinier Than Your Kid’s Bow Tie.” On his 18th birthday, a chilly January 3, instead of having been doing the session and arranging work that would be the precursor of one of the most versatile, brilliant rock careers ever, he’d step on stage at yet another talent show and wonder, despondent, how many more times he could do this sort of thing.
And what of Jimmy Page, the architect and guitar wizard of the band? Young Page was evidently a pretty good runner. So unfortunately for music, the 2010 Page ends up matched with sports-obsessed parents who see that glimmer of athletic talent and can’t wait to get him on, say, a soccer field. Instead of growing up as a well-adjusted loner — Page said of his solitary early years, “…isolation doesn’t bother me at all. It gives me a sense of security” — he would have spent weekends crammed in vans with a pile of kids rushing around to tournaments, games, and elite training sessions. He’d be playing year-round by the age of nine on different club teams. Alas, an overuse knee injury would end his career midway through high school. Since the real-life Page didn’t meet up with a guitar until he was 15, maybe even this washed-up boyhood athlete would have a chance. But his parents, after the soccer debacle and eager to find the next route to that scholarship, at the first sign of plucking would have hustled him right into intensive guitar, before the knee was even healed. The real Page recalls a key advantage to his early musical development: His high school teachers took his guitar away all day: “The good thing about the guitar was that they didn’t teach it in school. Teaching myself was the first and most important part of my education… I enjoyed pure music because we didn’t have to.” Today that would be borderline child abuse. With sports and then music converted to seven to eleven occupations, young Page would have sputtered along, dazed and confused by his regimented life to the point of creative palsy.
Okay, these four were all so talented — you could argue each was the best rocker ever in his area — that despite growing up with overprotective, overinvolved, overindulging, meddling parents, the fates may still have aligned and the mighty Zeppelin might have risen. But even then, would we have heard its bewitching hum and throb over the rickety clatter of those helicopters?
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Gotta love Led Zepplin.
This is fabulous!
Fantastic. I read this in the evening, and was a bit tired, so I’m glad you didn’t ramble on. There’s so often a communication breakdown when folks talk about how to involve their kids in activities that it’s sometimes a real heartbreaker. We need to step back and consider what is and what should never be when examining our kids life paths. Which one will be their stairway to heaven? Only time will tell. I hope that in my time of dying I feel like I had them living in the like rather then under my wing.
Thank you.
What a great piece! A clever way of getting at such a big issue. We parents mean so well but we’re probably stifling creativity in its cradle. And you don’t even get into the drug and music connection!
Hate Zeppelin – loved the article, Scott. I never tire of the discussion regarding over zealous parenting and the inevitable “burn out” that results. I do quite the opposite, by encouraging my children not to be TOO good at anything!
I loved the article and right on point!
Fortunately, none of the Led Zep crew were wrestlers and forced by their fathers to endure 14-hour marathon meets on Saturday and Sunday instead of jamming with the band, although some of the pharmaceuticals they ingested are pretty effective at making weight.
Profound and very deep. I believe this author is spot on in his analysis. Look forward to future pontifications by this young man.
we found out today that the only two concerns of our two-year-old’s teacher is that our kid drools a bit much and runs kind of funny. i’m thinking that if this were the 60s or 70s it would almost guarantee future rock-n-roll stardom, but with the helicopters on the way, i don’t know what to expect. good article, scott.
Were these guys in Riverton?
Scott,
Clever. Given the fact that I am in the choir, one could argue that you don’t “need” to reach me. You continue to do so and remind me that we need to utilize as many different ways possible to frame the discussion in order to reach the largest audience.
Keep up the great work!!