A confession: Writing about music, rock and roll in particular comes easily.  That is, by comparison finding the words to describe other topics; the more abstract the topic, the more difficult.  To find the exact word, that’s the key.  This tune by Led Zeppelin pierced “to the heart” as I drove to Starbucks this morning.  Outside the temperature registered 12 degrees fahreheit, the driving guitar licks and serrated lyric conveyed a more existential chill.  I listened and drove.  The story is anything but abstract.  On the surface its about a Viking invasion.

When this continent was “discovered” by our ancestors from Europe, the land was regarded as there for the taking.  I can imagine the scream that introduces the first verse would have been uttered by the indigenous people whose way of life was in conflict with the intention of the newly arrived immigrants who were bent on possessing the land.  The result was foreseeable.  King Philip’s War: the single greatest disaster of 17th century New England and, in proportion to population, is considered to be the deadliest war in American history.

“But King Philip’s War was obviously not just a Civil War putting Indian against Indian. The English and the Indians, as part of the same society with their polities interwoven, fought a civil war by fighting one another. Looking closely at the political culture of the Indians and the English, we see that Philip sought to preserve his people’s sovereignty by incorporating them into the English political system. The English, in turn, viewed Philip and his followers as subjects, traitorous ones after they waged the war in 1675. Thus King Philip’s War was not just an ‘Indian civil war’ but, more broadly, a civil war.”

— A Narrative of the Troubles with the Indians in New-England by William Hubbard, published 1677.

Given the inauspicious beginnings of our Nation, we continue to travel the road envisioned by our ancestors…

Immigrant Song

By Led Zeppelin

(2, 3, 4)

Ah! Ah!
We come from the land of the ice and snow
From the midnight sun where the hot springs flow

The hammer of the gods
Will drive our ships to new lands
To fight the horde, sing and cry
Valhalla, I am coming

On we sweep with threshing oar
Our only goal will be the western shore

Ah! Ah!
We come from the land of the ice and snow
From the midnight sun where the hot springs flow

How soft your fields so green
Can whisper tales of gore
Of how we calmed the tides of war
We are your overlords

On we sweep with threshing oar
Our only goal will be the western shore

So now you’d better stop
And rebuild all your ruins
For peace and trust can win the day
Despite of all your losing

Composed by: Jon James, Jimmy
Page