Lawsuit alleges Jimmy Page infringed copyright on 'Dazed and Confused'

A lawsuit claiming Jimmy Page copied a 1967 song called "Dazed and Confused" on Led Zeppelin's debut album seeks reimbursement from the author of the original work under that title.

Jake Holmes confirms to Lemon Squeezings the authenticity of an eight-page document appearing on the blog Miss Tila OMG in which he claims Page "copied" his song "without authorization or permission."

Holmes's song called "Dazed and Confused" appears on his album The Above Ground Sound of Jake Holmes, released more than a year before Led Zeppelin's first album contained a song of the same name. Both songs received separate copyright entries from the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers.

Attorneys for the New York-based singer and guitarist filed the suit in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California on Monday.

Holmes declined to offer any additional comments to Lemon Squeezings about the suit. In past interviews, he has explained that Page would have heard him play "Dazed and Confused" at a 1967 concert date in New York when Holmes closed his set with the tune. Page's band at that time, the Yardbirds, was headlining the concert.



Two other members of the Yardbirds, Chris Dreja and Jim McCarty, have said in interviews that both McCarty and Page liked the song so much when they heard Holmes perform it that, separately, both purchased copies of Holmes's album the following day. An adaptation of "Dazed and Confused" was added to the Yardbirds' live sets in 1968, the year that Page's new Yardbirds lineup became Led Zeppelin.

It was not until January 1969 that Atlantic Records released Led Zeppelin's first album, which contained a song called "Dazed and Confused" whose copyright was granted solely to Page.

Representatives for Page's management have so far not commented to Lemon Squeezings on the litigation. In the past, Page has denied any knowledge of having heard of the Holmes recording. This includes an interview published in the November 1990 issue of Musician magazine, in which Page denies any connection between his song and Holmes's.

MUSICIAN: I understand "Dazed and Confused" was originally a song by Jake Holmes. Is that true?

PAGE: [Sourly] I don't know. I don't know. [Inhaling] I don't know about all that.

MUSICIAN: Do you remember the process of writing that song?

PAGE: Well, I did that with the Yardbirds originally.... The Yardbirds were such a good band for a guitarist to play in that I came up with a lot of riffs and ideas out of that, and I employed quite a lot of those in the early Zeppelin stuff.

MUSICIAN: But Jake Holmes, a successful jingle writer in New York, claims on his 1967 record that he wrote the original song.

PAGE: Hmm. Well, I don't know. I don't know about that. I'd rather not get into it because I don't know all the circumstances. What's he got, The riff or whatever? Because Robert wrote some of the lyrics for that on the album. But he was only listening to...we extended it from the one that we were playing with the Yardbirds.

MUSICIAN: Did you bring it into the Yardbirds?

PAGE: No, I think we played it 'round a sort of melody line or something that Keith [Relf] had. So I don't know. I haven't heard Jake Holmes so I don't know what it's all about anyway. Usually my riffs are pretty damn original [laughs] What can I say?

The lawsuit claims Holmes is entitled to statutory damages of $150,000 per infringement as well as other actual damages to be determined. Holmes cites only versions of "Dazed and Confused" that have appeared on official Led Zeppelin albums releasd in the past three years. The Led Zeppelin song appears on the upgraded DVD and soundtrack releases of The Song Remains the Same released in 2007, the Mothership compilation, and on a DVD included in special editions of Mothership.

The lawsuit names Page as a defendant alongside Super Hype Publishing Inc., Atlantic Recording Corporation, and Rhino Entertainment Company.

Attorneys for Holmes declined to comment to Lemon Squeezings, citing a policy of not commenting on pending litigation.

The existence of an older song called "Dazed and Confused" by Jake Holmes has not been any kind of secret from authors of books about Led Zeppelin. In speaking with Ritchie Yorke for his "Definitive Biography of Led Zeppelin," Holmes said he had become aware of Led Zeppelin's "Dazed and Confused" only several years after the first Zeppelin album. At the time, he said he had no intention to file a suit.

More recently, former Classic Rock magazine editor Mick Wall interviewed Holmes for the unauthorized Led Zeppelin biography "When Giants Walked the Earth." Since then, Wall commented in an interview for Carol Miller's "Get the Led Out":

"If you listen to Jake's original version of 'Dazed and Confused,' it's the same tune. It's the same striding bassline. The lyrics to the verses are different, but the title is the same. The arrangement is essentially the same, and the melody [is the same]. And what Jimmy did was appropriate it. ... Jimmy took all that and stuck his name down as the songwriter and essentially stole the song. He rewrote the lyrics, so really it should have been music Holmes, lyrics and arrangement Page, but he didn't do that.

"... This doesn't forgive Zeppelin. I think it's actually unforgivable. What ["When Giants Walked the Earth"] tries to explain is where he's coming from, how this happened. In those days, going to America, if you lived in England, you may as well be talking about a mission to Mars. I mean, it was so far away in most people's minds, it really was another planet. The idea that this weird folk song by this completely unknown artist would be something that we would be discussing 40 years later and saying, 'He stole it, he took it, how could he?' wouldn't have even crossed his mind. It was for the first album, they were short of material, he came up with this thing.

"According to Jake, and I agree with him, he feels that the kicker is that 'Dazed and Confused' is now so synonymous with Jimmy Page -- it was always the big showcase for Jimmy in the Zeppelin performance -- but for him after all this time to come out and say, 'Well, you know what, actually Jake Holmes wrote this song' -- it's just not gonna happen. And I can understand how embarrassing and sensitive it must be for Jimmy to be put on the spot about it."

Wall says it's clear that "Jimmy stole the song" simply from comparing the versions recorded by Holmes and Led Zeppelin. He said a version performed by the Yardbirds for a 1968 radio session, which appears on the Yardbirds compilation album Cumular Limit released in 2000.

Former Melody Maker journalist Chris Welch, whose books on Led Zeppelin include one titled "Dazed and Confused: The Story Behind Every Led Zeppelin Song," has also been candid in discussing Holmes. In an interview for Carol Miller's "Get the Led Out," Welch said:

"'Dazed and Confused' is one of the sort of centerpiece numbers of Led Zeppelin and one of the numbers everybody associates with Jimmy, all the showmanship, the violin bow and the lasers, and the tremendous arrangement. But the actual roots of the piece, I think, go back in music history quite a way. It goes back to the singer-songwriter Jake Holmes, who -- I think he recorded an album called 'The Above Ground Sound of Jake Holmes,' so how Jimmy got to hear about that, I'm not too sure. He must have heard it back in the '60s or sometime. But I think a lot of people like to rearrange what they think are traditional, classic songs from the past, so that was the case with this. But, yeah, it's an extraordinary history, really, the evolution of that number, but I hope Jake wasn't too upset about it."

This is far from the first time Led Zeppelin has been accused of appropriating another songwriter's music. In a 2001 interview with John Paul Jones for the Lemon Squeezings predecessor On This Day in Led Zeppelin History, Jones said he knew early in the Led Zeppelin days that Page had previously performed "Dazed and Confused" with the Yardbirds.

Asked if he knew about the song by Holmes, Jones said, "I didn't know that then. I knew it was a Yardbirds number. But basically, we didn't have many songs, but we had to do some shows. So Page came in with a bunch of Yardbirds [songs]." Asked when he became aware of the Holmes song, Jones said, "Much later."

Jones said that during the Led Zeppelin days, "People were suing us that I'd never even heard of. A name would come in -- 'Who's this?' 'Oh, really, great!'"

Interview with Chris Welch on "Dazed and Confused," recorded for Carol Miller's "Get the Led Out":

Interview with Mick Wall on "Dazed and Confused," recorded for Carol Miller's "Get the Led Out":