In 1998, Robert Plant recorded “Please Read the Letter” with Jimmy Page for Walking Into Clarksdale. It was the only studio album Robert Plant and Jimmy Page made together after Led Zeppelin. The song sounded like a plea to someone who might already have stopped listening: read what I wrote, and perhaps understand what I could not say before.
Nearly a decade later, Robert Plant brought the song into a very different room. Alison Krauss was there, along with producer T Bone Burnett. What came out of that room would give “Please Read the Letter” a second life.
A song from an earlier chapter
The 1998 recording carried the weight of Robert Plant and Jimmy Page making music together again. Their shared history was impossible to miss. For listeners who knew Led Zeppelin, hearing Robert Plant beside Jimmy Page was an event in itself.
But “Please Read the Letter” did not need that history to make sense. Its central image was small and familiar: someone has written down the words that were too difficult to speak. The writer can only ask for the letter to be read. There is no promise that the message will fix anything.
That uncertainty gave Robert Plant a reason to return to the song. When Robert Plant began working with Alison Krauss on Raising Sand, the familiar recording was no longer the point. The question was what the song might reveal with another voice beside Robert Plant’s.
Alison Krauss enters the story
Released in 2007, Raising Sand brought together Robert Plant’s rock and blues background with Alison Krauss’s country and bluegrass experience. T Bone Burnett produced an album built around the way their voices met.
On the new “Please Read the Letter,” Robert Plant sings more quietly. Alison Krauss’s clear harmony changes the feeling of the plea. At moments, the two voices seem to share its regret; at others, Alison Krauss sounds like someone close enough to hear what Robert Plant is struggling to say.
The words were familiar, but the recording gave listeners another way into them. Anyone who has ever put an apology, a confession, or a goodbye into a letter knows the difficult part comes after writing it. Someone else must decide whether to open it.
The night the letter was heard
On February 8, 2009, Robert Plant and Alison Krauss won the Grammy for Record of the Year with “Please Read the Letter.” The other nominees included Coldplay’s “Viva La Vida” and Adele’s “Chasing Pavements.” Raising Sand also won Album of the Year, and Robert Plant and Alison Krauss took home five Grammys that night.
Before working with Alison Krauss, Robert Plant had won one Grammy. Robert Plant and Alison Krauss had already received another Grammy together in 2008; by the end of the 2009 ceremony, Robert Plant’s total had reached seven.
The numbers are striking, but the song’s journey is the better story. Robert Plant first recorded “Please Read the Letter” with someone who knew Robert Plant’s musical past as well as anyone. Nine years later, Robert Plant sang it with someone who heard a new possibility in it.
Both recordings remain. Listen to them in order, and you can hear how much a voice beside a singer can change the meaning of a song. Which version of “Please Read the Letter” stays with you?