Bron-Yr-Aur (sometimes misspelled as Bron-Y-Aur) is a house in Gwynedd, Wales, at grid reference SH735026, on a hilltop overlooking the Dyfi Valley. Its name means breast of the gold or hill of the gold in Welsh.
Bron-Yr-Aur is best known for its association with English rock group Led Zeppelin. The 18th century cottage had been used by the family of Led Zeppelin singer Robert Plant during the 1950s as a holiday house. In 1970, Plant and guitarist Jimmy Page spent time there after a long and grueling concert tour of the United States. Though the cottage had no running water or electricity, they used it as a retreat to write and record some of their third album, Led Zeppelin III. Also at the cottage at the time were Plant's wife Maureen and 18-month-old daughter Carmen, Page's girlfriend Charlotte Martin, and Led Zeppelin roadies Clive Coulson and Sandy MacGregor.
Led Zeppelin songs whose beginnings can be traced to Plant and Page's time at Bron-Yr-Aur in 1970 include "Over the Hills and Far Away" and "The Crunge" (both from Houses of the Holy), "The Rover", "Bron-Yr-Aur" and "Down By The Seaside" (from Physical Graffiti), "Poor Tom" (from Coda) and three they actually used on Led Zeppelin III: "Friends", "Bron-Y-Aur Stomp" and "That's the Way". There were also two songs recorded but lost, called "Another Way To Wales" and "I Wanna Be Her Man".
When onstage for Page and Plant's Unledded reunion in 1994, Plant announced to the audience that Page's daughter, Scarlet Page, was conceived "about half an hour" after "That's The Way" was written at Bron-Yr-Aur.
Led Zeppelin used the name of the house in the title of of their songs: "Bron-Y-Aur Stomp" (the name of the house being accidentally mis-spelt on the album cover), and "Bron-Yr-Aur". Bron-Y-Aur Stomp is a country music inflected hoedown on Led Zeppelin III, in which Robert Plant waxes lyrical about walking in the woods with his blue eyed merle dog. Conversely, "Bron-Yr-Aur" is a gentle, acoustic instrumental by Page on the six-string guitar, which appeared on the later album Physical Graffiti and in the film The Song Remains the Same.
"Bron-Y-Aur" is also the name of the secret instrumental track at the end of Good Apollo I'm Burning Star IV, Volume One: From Fear Through the Eyes of Madness, the third album from Coheed and Cambria. The track has a similar sound to the Led Zeppelin song of the same title. |
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