I have never been a Led Zeppelin fan.  Taste in music, taste in art has nothing to do with reason.  It comes down to serendipity, the genre’s of music that one is exposed to by accident of your time and place in this world.  That’s all.  There’s no independent baseline of measure, when it comes to “taste.”

This is a song of war, an expression of the a-rationality, the feral, the unaccountable devastation and murder of war, particularly modern warfare.  The Russian army was directed to subjugate Ukraine by overwhelming the smaller country with a ring of steel and heavy artillery.  Self propelled field guns are dubbed “the gods of war” on account of the capacity to destroy from miles distant.  Ukraine was given the ultimatum — to submit, or to fight and die.  Assault: the offer you can’t refuse.

They chose to fight.  Russian armor massed on roads leading to Kyiv, was destroyed in large numbers by Ukrainian army and “home guard” civilians who fought for their homes, for their land, for the lives of everyone they loved.  Thus “the hammer of the gods” was stymied, for now, and forced to retreat to avoid further losses.

The photos were taken recently, upon discovery of civilians tortured, murdered, the mass graves, bodies strewn in the streets of the towns and the suburbs of Kyiv, — left behind by the Russian army.  Especially moving, the photo of president Zelenskyy appearing to be in tears at the sight of innocent civilians, lives ended abruptly in horror. 

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The lyrics of the Led Zeppelin tune, Immigrant Song, — the syncopated drumming, the anguished wail of Robert Plant, fuse to convey the abject terror of civilians caught in the maw of war, butchered by an invading army. 

Immigrant Song

By Led Zeppelin

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

Lyrics by Jon James and Jimmy Page