Elvis Costello’s cutting critique of Led Zeppelin, Guns N’ Roses, and who they both stole from
(Credits: Far Out / Led Zeppelin / Album Cover / Mark Seliger / Elvis Costello)
Fri 3 April 2026 14:00, UK
Within the realm of rock and roll, Led Zeppelin are a seemingly untouchable force; if you are a songwriter without Led Zeppelin III in your collection, you are looked upon with a certain degree of suspicion from the hordes of rock elitists. Not, as it turns out, that it has ever worried Elvis Costello very much.
Costello has always drawn from a particularly wide pool of influences, stretching from the pioneering reggae rhythms of Jimmy Cliff to the punk politics of Joe Strummer. Seemingly, though, that pool of influences does not include Led Zeppelin, even in spite of the fact that the thick-rimmed, angry young man was the exact target age group and (let’s be honest) gender for Zeppelin’s hard rock revolution. Then again, he has never been one to mindlessly follow trends.
Strangely enough, Costello’s appreciation, or lack thereof, for Jimmy Page’s outfit arose during a 1989 chat with Rolling Stone when he was asked whether he had any love for Guns N’ Roses. “Yes, I do,” he retorted. “But I like Donald Duck as well. They’re both cartoons, aren’t they?”
A fittingly cutting put-down from the songwriter, though he did go on to add, “I don’t mean to put Guns ‘n’ Roses down. Heaven knows I think they’re really dedicated, and I like that ‘Sweet Child o’ Mine’ record – the one that sounds like Led Zeppelin.” Being compared to Led Zeppelin is typically the pinnacle of rock and roll compliments, given just how impactful the group were back in the 1970s. In this case, though, Costello wasn’t being all that complimentary.
“I think it sounds less pompous than Led Zeppelin doing it,” he admitted, either in an attempt to give Axl Rose some credit or tear down Led Zeppelin even further. “But I didn’t like Led Zeppelin to begin with, so you’re asking the wrong guy.”
How can that be, you may be questioning, that somebody with as rich rock and roll credentials as Elvis Costello could dislike a band as important in British rock history as Led Zeppelin? Luckily, the songwriter soon explained that his allegiances lie elsewhere: “I like Howlin’ Wolf. I like the stuff Zeppelin stole from. I don’t need to hear a facsimile of a facsimile of a facsimile.”
Again, it is the kind of barbed comment that many people have come to expect from Costello over the years, but it isn’t totally without merit, either. Even Jimmy Page himself wouldn’t deny that his guitar playing, along with the root sound of Zeppelin, is heavily indebted to the pioneering blues stylings of figures like Howlin’ Wolf – nor would The Rolling Stones, Jimi Hendrix, Cream, or any number of the other rock icons spawned from his blues sound.
A key example of that influence arrived during the early days of the band, when they re-arranged Wolf’s ‘Killing Floor’ into ‘The Lemon Song’, making their influences known early doors and making no attempt to hide their adoration of the blues legend. To be fair to Costello, though, Led Zeppelin have certainly attracted more plagiarism claims and, in some cases, lawsuits than other appreciators of the blues.
Either way, Costello’s claim that he needed “to hear a facsimile of a facsimile of a facsimile” could be accused of being a little reductive. After all, virtually all rock and roll inevitably leads back to the blues, but over the decades, it has been adapted and rearranged into something slightly different, and thus, the musical realm has progressed.
It isn’t as though Elvis Costello himself has pulled every one of his multitude of songs completely from the ether, without being influenced or inspired by the musicians who came before him. Then again, he has certainly boasted more in the way of originality than Guns N’ Roses over the course of his career.
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