Jimmy Page and the Song That Won’t Die

He plays like a man trying to conjure thunder, not remember it. That’s the strange cruelty of watching Jimmy Page today: his fingers still summon storms, but the ghosts that chase him are quieter, more legal, less forgiving. Another lawsuit. Another shadow on a song that has always sounded slightly cursed.

“Dazed and Confused” has never been a clean track. From the first fuzzed-out descent, it bore the swagger of something too good to be new—and for good reason. Jake Holmes, the folk-rock footnote whose song Page allegedly reworked into the Zeppelin classic, has once again stepped forward. A new lawsuit has been filed, and this time the accusations don’t just nibble at the corners—they question the very soul of authorship in rock music. Who owns a melody that’s been passed, tweaked, filtered through distortion and ego? Is it still theft if the thief turns it into legend?

The Sound of Borrowed Genius

Led Zeppelin was always more cathedral than band—loud, magnificent, unapologetically built on older stones. Their legacy is part brilliance, part curated myth. Page, the sonic architect, has long maintained that while inspired, “Dazed and Confused” was ultimately his creation, reshaped entirely by his vision. But critics—and increasingly, courts—have begun to push back. The riffs may be anthemic, but their origins are muddy. And rock history, it turns out, has a long memory.

Holmes first filed suit decades ago but was swept aside by the Zeppelin machine. This new lawsuit is different. It rides on years of reappraisals, new recordings, old interviews unearthed like fragments from a disputed temple. “He didn’t just take the melody,” Holmes reportedly told friends in recent months. “He took the entire atmosphere.” It’s an accusation less about notes and more about spirit—something notoriously hard to copyright.

When Legacy Starts to Fray

The timing is more than curious. Page has kept a low profile, yet the Zeppelin catalogue has never been more available—streaming, remastered, anthologized to the brink of saturation. Every re-release reopens the wound. Every deluxe vinyl pressing invites a closer listen. And with that closeness, comes scrutiny. What once passed as homage now registers as appropriation. What once felt like folklore now reads like forensic evidence.

There is no denying that Page built something enormous out of what he borrowed. That’s what artists do. But the question now is whether myth can still protect him—or whether the myth itself has become the crime. As younger generations inherit this music, they bring with them different ethics, different definitions of authorship. The idea of the solitary genius, plucking riffs from the ether, no longer holds. People want provenance. And Page, whether guilty or not, is increasingly being asked to provide it.

Perhaps it’s fitting that “Dazed and Confused” ends in chaos. Guitars spiraling, structure disintegrating, clarity drowned in reverb.
You hear it differently now.
As if the song itself is asking: Who did I used to be?