In 1969, Led Zeppelin’s second album featured plenty of rock radio-ready tracks, but one song never made it past the DJs—because Jimmy Page reportedly refused to play it live.
The song was “Living Loving Maid (She’s Just a Woman),” and while it received frequent radio airplay as part of a segue from the song “Heartbreaker,” the legendary rock band never played it at their shows.
Written by Page and Robert Plant, “Living Loving Maid” featured lyrics about a woman “with a purple umbrella and a fifty-cent hat.” Page’s guitar riff was described by Goldmine magazine as “tonally fresh” and “the most modern-sounding riff on 1969’s Led Zeppelin II, a sort of smarter version of ‘Communication Breakdown’ from earlier in the year.”
“I used a Vox 12-string,” Page confirmed to Guitar Player in 1993. “You can hear the Vox on things like ‘Thank You’ and ‘Living Loving Maid’ on the second album.”
Despite the positive feedback on his guitar work, Page said he and his Led Zeppelin bandmates never really liked “Living Loving Maid,” according to Guitar Player.
Guitarist Robbie Gage, who once jammed with Page in 1991, claimed to Ultimate Classic Rock that Page told him he’d play “anything but ‘Stairway to Heaven’ or ‘Living Loving Maid’ — he hated that song.”
Plant apparently also took issue with the track, once telling True Metal that “’Living Loving Maid’ is probably the first one” on his list of songs he wished he hadn’t written. “It’s terrible, the lyrics are awful,” the singer admitted.
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Still, Plant teased “Living Loving Maid” a few times on stage, singing the first line of the song during “Heartbreaker” at a couple of shows in the 1970s, but going no further. He later performed the song as an encore during his Manic Nirvana solo tour in 1990, but never with Zeppelin.
Plant has gone on record as saying that “Living Loving Maid” is an important part of Led Zeppelin’s “tapestry of music.”
“We didn’t actually develop a style and stick to it, we were moving all over the place,” he told The Arts Desk of the band’s early years.
“People remember that, from those days, and people now who find us, those I’ve met, can’t believe that you can actually cover such a broad volume of alternative areas in one four-piece band,” he said. “That was the great thing about it. The difference between “Living Loving Maid” [and “In the Light” [from Physical Graffiti], you know, ‘Four Sticks’ [from Led Zeppelin IV] … it’s entertainment, and we purposely set out to please ourselves, and kept changing around.”
Nearly 60 years after its release, “Living Loving Maid” isn’t one of Led Zeppelin’s biggest hits, but it remains a rock radio staple, still played back-to-back with “Heartbreaker” as a classic rock double shot.
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