Page/Plant "No Quarter" and the post-9/11 World

You know, I have to say, it's quite a thrill to come here with a Zeppelin thread in mind and, with confidence, click on the "Proto-Prog and Prog-Related Lounge" link, knowing it won't be moved to "Non-Prog Related" or whatever. This area--"Proto-Prog and Prog-Related Lounge"--is their new home. Others valiantly argued and fought, using bold, multi-colored fonts, screeching italics, endless rows of exclamation marks, and so on...but they lost. Zep is here, Zep has been sanctioned by the high priests of the website to be "Proto-Prog and Prog-Related." Which one? It doesn't matter, because they're here now. The war is over. Zep made it in to this website and they're not leavin'.

Anyway, sorry about that, to the point:

You know, I have a question. Being a total devoted Led Zeppelin fan, I purchased P/P "No Quarter" and loved every digital millisecond of it, was so proud of Page and Plant that they could get together and put out material that ranks up there with their best. It was the best of times. The new material was fantastic, including "Yallah." I don't know what Page was doing to the guitar on that track, but it was emitting sounds that caused me to sit up and take notice.

But then, later they released the "remastered" version or whatever, and replaced "Yallah" with "The Rain Song."

Now is it me, or did that decision have something to do with the post 9/11 world we live in? Maybe I'm being a bit paranoid, and I hope I am, but I fear that because the song is sort of a celebration of Allah, that the record company pulled it off the disc. I really hope that's not the case, but it seems very suspicious to me. I mean, here's a freakin' brand new Page/Plant track, and they replace it with a rather average, standard live rendering of "The Rain Song"? Did anyone ever read something about that? Please let me know. Thanks.
    
    
    
    
    
    

Edited by bluetailfly - January 22 2007 at 00:34

Atavachron wrote: I Don't think Page or Plant would be so swayed by any record company...they're their own company regardless of who distributes the album. It was probably their own decision and may have had to do with 9/11, but I also know they love Arabic culture and music, so it may have been out of respect for both parties. Or they could have simply decided to include Rain Song because they liked this version.

I agree with you in that I don't think the record company strong-armed them in to doing it. It just seems odd...
    
    

Edited by bluetailfly - January 22 2007 at 00:23

^^
? I didn't mean to imply it was a pro-U.S. gesture...

I don't know anything about the reasons why the song was removed (I've got the original version with that song on it), but for the record, "Yallah" in Arabic means "forward!", and has nothing to do with Allah. This is something I learnt in my past as a belly dancer, since the word was very often used in choreographies.

From what I know this tracklist difference dates from the 90s and it only marks the difference between "No Quarter" and "No Quarter Unledded", making them slightly different releases. Nothing political/cultural about it. From what I know you're talking about the "Unledded", which is having "The Rains Song" (but also "What is what should never be" as I remember).