Swan Song Records was a record label launched by the English rock band Led Zeppelin on 10 May 1974. It was overseen by Led Zeppelin's manager Peter Grant and was a vehicle for the band to promote its own products as well as sign artists who found it difficult to win contracts with other major labels. The decision to launch the label came after Led Zeppelin's five-year contract with Atlantic Records expired at the end of 1973. Atlantic Records ultimately distributed the label's product.
Artists that released material on the Swan Song label during its existence included Led Zeppelin itself (including later solo releases by band members Jimmy Page and Robert Plant); Bad Company; The Pretty Things; Dave Edmunds; Mirabai; Maggie Bell (and the short-lived band she fronted, Midnight Flyer); Detective; and Sad Café. In addition to these artists, two other noted recording acts (though not signed to the label) were credited artists on Swan Song singles, both of which were UK hits in 1981: B. A. Robertson duetted on with Maggie Bell on the single "Hold Me", and The Stray Cats backed Dave Edmunds on his 1981 single "The Race Is On".
Swan Song ceased active operations in 1983, and now exists only to reissue previously released material.
Famous quotes containing the words swan song, swan, song and/or records:
“Old age cannot be cured. An epoch or a civilization cannot be prevented from breathing its last. A natural process that happens to all flesh and all human manifestations cannot be arrested. You can only wring your hands and utter a beautiful swan song.”
—Renee Winegarten (b. 1922)
“But all is changed, that high horse riderless,
Though mounted in that saddle Homer rode
Where the swan drifts upon a darkening flood.”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)
“In song and dance man expresses himself as a member of a higher community: he has forgotten how to walk and speak and is on the way toward flying up into the air, dancing.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)
“The camera relieves us of the burden of memory. It surveys us like God, and it surveys for us. Yet no other god has been so cynical, for the camera records in order to forget.”
—John Berger (b. 1926)