Rock N Roll NDA
Incensed that an elderly lawyer should presume to comment upon his lyrics, Robert Plant & Jimmy Page got their own back when the old solicitor asked Led Zeppelin to sign a confidentiality agreement. This is what came back in the mail, with a note of costs.[1]
My Confidential Heart
Words and Music by R Plant
Baby, baby, baby (ad lib)
If you want me to love you
& tell you all I know
Some things you gotta tell me
Babe, you gotta show —
Whatever else may happen
What comes down on your head
You’ll never break my confidence
Or tell them what I said.
(Listen —
Do you want to know a secret?
Do you promise not to tell?)[2]
& when I say my “Secrets”
This is what I mean:
Everything I tell you
About everything I’ve seen
& everything I show you
& everything I knew
& everything I’ve told you
About everything I do.
I don’t mean no other things —
Not what the whole world knows
Not what another man has said
That’s not the way it goes
& baby, there’s one other thing
You can cut out & save:
Though you may take
The Secrets that I tell you
To your grave,
I never promised anything I told you
Would be true
I never said to no-one
That I’d never lie to you.
Tell me that you will, my baby
That you’ll do what you can
To keep my secrets safe & sound
& not tell another man
You can maybe tell your mama
& tell your daddy too
& tell your regulator
If he tells you you have to
But before you spill my Secrets
(That you promised to the grave)
You gotta let me know
So I can go
& force them to behave
Now things may change & we may change —
Our love no more be true.
If it should fail & break apart
Here’s what you’re gonna do:
You’re gonna send it back
You’re gonna hand it back
You’re gonna give it back to me
(But you may choose
To put beyond your use
The stuff you can’t unsee)
I ain’t granting you no licence
Ain’t pledging you no right
& if we should ever quarrel
If we should ever fight
If there’s ever tension
That lovers can’t resolve
There’s a place the I can take you
To make our differences dissolve
It ain’t no arbitration
It ain’t no arbitrary thought
It’s the chancery division
Of an English court.
So if you want to hear me squeal
Sign on the dotted line
& I’ll open my whole heart to you
One vein at a time.