Led Zeppelin – All My Love

This synth driven song was a memorable one from the In Through The Out Door album. It’s not your usual love song. It’s about Robert Plant’s son Karac who died in 1977 from a stomach virus when he was 5 years old. Robert has said “It was paying tribute to the joy that he gave us as a family.

Robert Plant holding his son Karac and walking beside his daughter

Some Zeppelin fans didn’t like this album as much. I have always liked the album but I don’t consider it their best or worse. Like with Who songs…the drums here are a stand out.

John Bonham and Jimmy Page didn’t take to the song too well. They thought it was a little too soft for Zeppelin. Page said it was fine on the album but he would not have wanted to go in that direction in the future.

Robert and John Paul Jones wrote this song.

Robert Plant: “In Through The Out Door wasn’t the greatest thing in the world, but at least we were trying to vary what we were doing, for our own integrity’s sake,” “Of all the (Led Zeppelin) records, it’s interesting but a bit sanitized because we hadn’t been in the clamor and chaos for a long time. In ’77, when I lost my boy, I didn’t really want to go swinging around- ‘Hey hey mama say the way you move’ didn’t really have a great deal of import anymore.”

From Songfacts

Zeppelin vocalist Robert Plant and bass player John Paul Jones wrote this. The band had drifted apart, with guitarist Jimmy Page and drummer John Bonham hanging out together and rarely showing up on time for recording sessions. As a result, many of the songs on In Through The Out Door were put together by Plant and Jones, with Page and Bonham adding their parts late at night.

This changes key on the last chorus.

You don’t hear much synthesizer in Led Zeppelin’s canon, but “All My Love” contains a synth solo played by John Paul Jones. In Through The Out Door was recorded at Polar Studios in Stockholm, which was owned by Abba. Benny Andersson of Abba had a Yamaha GX-1 synth in the studio that Jones used on the track.

This was only played live during Led Zeppelin’s 1980 tour of Germany.

Robert Plant had another son, Logan, in 1979 before In Through The Out Door was released. He has talked about how his images of Logan and Karac sometimes blur together, with his joy for Logan’s life tempered by the pain of Karac’s death. Plant’s 1993 solo track “I Believe” is also about Karac.

All My Love

Should I fall out of love, my fire in the light
To chase a feather in the wind
Within the glow that weaves a cloak of delight
There moves a thread that has no end

For many hours and days that pass ever soon
The tides have caused the flame to dim
At last the arm is straight, the hand to the loom
Is this to end or just begin?

All of my love, all of my love
All of my love to you, oh

All of my love, all of my love, oh
All of my love to you

The cup is raised, the toast is made yet again
One voice is clear above the din
Proud Arianne one word, my will to sustain
For me, the cloth once more to spin, oh

All of my love, all of my love, oh
All of my love to you

All of my love, all of my love, yes
All of my love to you

Yours is the cloth, mine is the hand that sews time
His is the force that lies within
Ours is the fire, all the warmth we can find
He is a feather in the wind, oh

All of my love, all of my love, oh
All of my love to you

All of my love, ooh yes, all of my love to you now
All of my love, all of my love
All of my love, love, sometimes, sometimes

Sometimes, sometimes, oh love
Hey, hey, hey
Hey, hey, hey
Ooh yeah, it’s all my love

All of my love, all of my love, to you now

All of my love, all of my love
all of my love to, to you, you, you, yeah
I get a little bit lonely