Royal Orleans

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

For the hotel in New Orleans, Louisiana, see Omni Royal Orleans.
"Royal Orleans"
"Royal Orleans" cover
Song by Led Zeppelin
from the album Presence
Released March 31, 1976
Recorded November-December, 1975
Genre Hard rock
Length 2:59
Label Swan Song
Writer(s) Bonham/Jones/Page/Plant
Producer(s) Jimmy Page
Presence track listing
"For Your Life"
(2)
"Royal Orleans"
(3)
"Nobody's Fault But Mine"
(4)

"Royal Orleans" is a song by English rock group Led Zeppelin, from their 1976 album Presence.

When in New Orleans on concert tours, members of the group would stay at the Royal Orleans Hotel, and the song is reportedly based on an incident that occurred there. The story goes that, once when staying at the hotel in the early 1970s, a member of Led Zeppelin accidentally brought a transvestite up to his room, thinking he was a woman. Both smoked marijuana and fell asleep, the transvestite with a lit joint in his hand, which caught fire and burned the room down (though everyone escaped). To this day nobody is quite sure which member of the group was involved, although it has been suggested that it was bassist/keyboardist John Paul Jones. The song suggests that it is John Paul Jones from the line:

And when the sun peeked through
John Cameron with Suzanna,
He kissed the whiskers, left & right

John Cameron was a studio rival of John Paul Jones. The song also alludes to Barry White.

"Royal Orleans" is the only song on the album credited to all four members (or any members besides Robert Plant and Jimmy Page). Lead singer Robert Plant wrote most of the lyrics, using the song as a way to poke fun at bandmate Jones, allegedly because of a comment Jones once made that vocals were the least important part of the band. The lyrics include lines such as "Be careful how you choose it" and "Poor whiskers set the room alight" to reference the event.
This song was never performed live by the band at Led Zeppelin concerts.

  • B-side of "Candy Store Rock."

  • Led Zeppelin: Dazed and Confused: The Stories Behind Every song, by Chris Welch, ISBN 1-56025-818-7
  • The Complete Guide to the Music of Led Zeppelin, by Dave Lewis, ISBN 0-7119-3528-9


Advanced Search
Included Web Search Engines


Safe Search

close

Top Matching Results

Occasionally Search.com will highlight specialized results that are based on the context of your query. Examples of specialized results include specific links to news, images, or video.

Top Matching Results may highlight information from other Search.com pages, content from the CNET Network of sites, or third party content. The listings are based purely on relevance. Search.com does not receive payment for listings in this section but our partners that provide this data may get paid for listing these products.

Sponsored Links

This section contains paid listings which have been purchased by companies that want to have their sites appear for specific search terms and related content. These listings are administered, sorted and maintained by a third party and are not endorsed by Search.com.

Search Results

Search.com sends your search query to several search engines at one time and integrates the results into one list which has been sorted by relevance using Search.com's proprietary algorithm. You can customize the list of search engines included in your metasearch from the preferences.

The search engines that are used in your metasearch may allow companies to pay to have their Web sites included within the results. To view the Paid Inclusion policy for a specific search engine, please visit their Web site. Search.com does not accept payment or share revenue with any search engine partner for listings in this section.