Led Zeppelin

Many musicians have a conflicted relationship with their songs, even their biggest hits. In the case of Led Zeppelin, Robert Plant's dislike for the very song that made the band's name indelible, "Stairway To Heaven", is well known. But that's not the only case — in fact, there's another track in their catalogue that was essentially disowned by the band, or at least by its authors, the Robert Plant-Jimmy Page duo. The song in question is "Living Loving Maid (She's Just a Woman)", included on "Led Zeppelin II", which holds a rather peculiar record: despite its long-running radio success, it was never once performed live by the English band. The main culprit behind keeping it off the setlists was Jimmy Page, who never hid his distaste for a song that was clearly not much loved by Robert Plant either.

Released in 1969 and credited to Page and Plant, "Living Loving Maid" follows "Heartbreaker" in the tracklist of Led Zeppelin's second album. The proximity of the two songs helped forge a lasting association: many radio stations began playing them back to back, almost as a single sequence, a habit that persisted for decades on classic rock stations.
Musically, the song rests on one of Page's most immediate riffs, recorded using a Vox 12-string, the same instrument used on "Thank You". That guitar work has often been reassessed over the years: Goldmine, for instance, called the riff remarkably modern for 1969, comparing it to a more sophisticated version of the one from "Communication Breakdown".
None of that, however, was ever enough to win over its author. Guitarist Robbie Gage, who had the chance to play with Page during a jam session in 1991, recalled that the Led Zeppelin frontman said he'd be willing to play pretty much any song except "Living Loving Maid", adding that he hated it.
Page never gave a definitive explanation for his aversion. Various interpretations have circulated over the years: the song's overly pop-leaning character, the sense that it was a minor track thrown in to round out the album, or his irritation at radio stations' habit of pairing it with "Heartbreaker". What's certain is that, throughout Led Zeppelin's entire career, "Living Loving Maid" never really made it into their live sets.

Robert Plant, the song's co-writer, was no less harsh about it. Asked in the past which songs he wished he'd never written, the singer named "Living Loving Maid" among the first, calling it "terrible" and judging the lyrics "awful".
The verses describe an eccentric woman, depicted with a purple umbrella and a fifty-cent hat; according to some accounts, the character was inspired by a woman who used to hang persistently around the band's circle in their early years. The lyrics also carry traces of the machismo that characterized part of rock's imagery at the time, which likely contributed, years later, to Plant's embarrassment over the song.
The singer, however, was less uncompromising than Page when it came to live performance. In the Seventies, he did occasionally slip in the opening line of "Living Loving Maid" during "Heartbreaker", without ever performing the song in full. To actually hear it sung live by him, fans had to wait until 1990, when Plant brought it back as an encore during the solo tour for "Manic Nirvana".

As the years went by, Plant himself came to acknowledge the song's place in Led Zeppelin's musical mosaic. Looking back on the band's history, the singer pointed precisely to the quartet's ability to never settle into a single formula, moving from direct, straightforward tracks like "Living Loving Maid" to radically different compositions such as "Four Sticks" and "In The Light".
So, nearly sixty years after its release, one of the least-loved songs in the Page-Plant catalogue paradoxically endures as a radio classic, still often played right after "Heartbreaker" — the very pairing from which its authors' dislike could never quite free it.

Ride the wave of great music

Add OndaRock to your favorite sources on Google Discover. Don't miss our reviews, milestones and latest news straight in your feed.

Follow on Google

02/10/2026