I like Led Zeppelin. Looking around YouTube on other things, though, I was surprised how many of their songs were plagiarized.
I was aware of this one, written by Willie Dixon, who I saw perform it in 1981.
I see Willie Dixon settled with Led Zeppelin on this in 1985.
But I wasn’t aware of all the other ones I happened across in these videos:
To be fair, everybody ripped off those old blues records from time-to-time. Led Zeppelin was especially blatant about it, though, which definitely diminishes their historical reputation relative to some other members of the rock pantheon to me. That does not even count their subtle lifts, such as "Tramped Underfoot" being a rewrite of "Superstition." All that, plus their later albums just being plain bad most of the time, holds them back to me.
They were a great cover band, though.
This album declared to the world that Zeppelin was officially done as a creative/ musical force.
I know the "cut a double into a single and it is much better" trope is exactly that, a trope, with classic albums, but
Physical Graffiti could have really used it. Their early records are very tight on their arrangements and song choices (most of the time).
Physical Graffiti has a ton of flab despite all the guitar heroics.
The court can say what it was for legal purposes, but I think it is clear Page ripped of some of the chords and tone colors from "Taurus" for "Stairway."
Anybody with ears should be able to hear it. Courts get things wrong sometimes.