What Was the Hardest Song for Robert Plant to Sing?

Musician Robert Plant & The Sensational Space Shifters perform onstage at Which Stage during Day 4 of the 2015 Bonnaroo Music And Arts Festival on June 14, 2015 in Manchester, Tennessee
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Robert Plant is considered one of the greatest rock vocalists of all time, both as a solo artist and in his work with Led Zeppelin. But there’s one song so complex, it stumped even this masterful singer with an impressive vocal range: Dillard and Clark’s “Polly,” which he covered with country singer Alison Krauss as a new version called “Polly Come Home” in 2007.

“It’s just the most difficult piece of music to sing at the tempo that we sang it at,” Plant explained. “It’s one of the toughest calls I’ve had, apart from my audition in the Yardbirds.”

NASHVILLE, TN - OCTOBER 13: ***EXCLUSIVE*** Singers/Songwriters Robert Plant and Allison Krauss backstage at the 10th Americana Music Association honors and awards at the Ryman Auditorium on October 13, 2011 in Nashville, Tennessee

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Plant and Krauss worked together in an unlikely pairing for the duet album Raising Sand. The song “Polly Come Home” is a slow ballad that requires just the right amount of emotion from both Plant and Krauss. While some may think that songs with high notes or shrieks would be difficult for most singers, it turns out that for some, actually maintaining their breath for mid-level notes at a slower pace is the true challenge.

Plant continued, “The song itself is just, it’s so poignant. And it’s so slow. So the very opening line of the song, in my chest, my lungs, my vocal cords, in my sense of timing. … It was, ‘How am I gonna get these words right to the end of that bar without collapsing?’ It was just such a beautiful lilt.”

Listen to the song below and let us know if this surprised you, given that Plant sings some pretty epic songs.

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