Bron-Yr-Aur: How Isolation and Loneliness Helped Led Zeppelin (and Many Other Bands) Compose Great Music

Decades ago, two men sat in a cabin called Bron-Yr-Aur and composed until the sun rose.

On the outskirts of Machynlleth in Montgomeryshire, Wales, sits a charming 18th-century cottage named Bron-Yr-Aur. Translated from Welsh, its name is “breast of the gold,” and by extension, “hill of gold” or “golden hill.” Far from only being a beautiful dot on the surrounding hillside, Bron-Yr-Aur has far more significance as the birthplace of many great songs of a legendary band — Led Zeppelin.

Two Led Zeppelin members, Robert Plant and Jimmy Page, had been doing quite well while working on new material. They’d been riding on the glory of their first two albums and were hungry for more, eager to create, compose, ravenous for the thunderous applause their freshly minted compositions would arouse. In the middle of their creative streak, Page had a novel idea: a countryside retreat. The year was 1970.

We had this time off and Robert suggested the cottage.” Page once said in an interview. “I certainly hadn’t been to that area of Wales. So we took our guitars down there and played a few bits and pieces. This wonderful countryside, panoramic views, and having the guitars … it was just an automatic thing to be playing. And we started writing.”

And write they did. Some incredible tracks resulted from this excursion: “The Rover,” “Over the Hills and Far Away,” “Down by the Seaside,” and, of course, two tributes to the cottage: “Bron-Yr-Aur” and “Bron-Yr-Aur Stomp.” What was so special about the cottage? Was it the coziness? The idyllic scenery that surrounded it? Perhaps its decorations were inspiring?

In truth, it was the remoteness, the time off from civilization, that allowed the duo to focus on the task at hand. Exclusively spending time with each other (apart from excursions to the store) helped Page and Plant to understand themselves and their connection better than spending time together on tour ever could.

As Page put it, the time he spent in the cottage was “the first time [he] really came to know Robert. Actually living together at Bron-Yr-Aur, as opposed to occupying nearby hotel rooms. The songs took us into areas that changed the band, and it established a standard of travelling for inspiration… which is the best thing a musician can do.”

Bron-Yr-Aur allowed Plant and Page to recuperate from a long and exhausting tour of North America. The drastic shift from spotlights and screaming fans to a cottage without running water or electricity gave them some much-needed rest from socialization, the worries of a musician’s life, and the grand expectations that came with it. The countryside vacation was but a minuscule fraction in the tapestry of their lives, yet it still resonates in the music of Led Zeppelin 54 years after the fact.

All creatives live in isolation of some kind: mental prisons of their own making, loneliness stemming from misunderstanding, a desire to create magnificent works of art – unmet by a similarly possessed individual. Some bear the brunt of this loneliness with ease, scoffing. Some can not bear it, needing ever more strength to go on, looking for crutches and ways out.

Like the great dragon Níðhöggr, who chews away at the roots of Yggdrasil, loneliness persists, the gnashing of teeth growing louder or quieter as the sands of time ebb and flow. But loneliness and isolation have potential – a font of power exploitable by artists, giving birth to wondrous music, almost-breathing paintings & sculptures, whole hearts played out on the theatre stage, photographs that are seals and confirmations of the beauty of life.

Bron-Yr-Aur is but one of the examples of isolation working its magic through music. The members of Radiohead infused “OK Computer” with a repressive atmosphere reflecting the countryside bereft of people and shifted the wave of emotion into a dystopian fantasy. Bruce Springsteen sat in the silence of his room with a four-track cassette recorder and taped the songs of “Nebraska.”

Justin Vernon retreated to his father’s remote timber-framed hunting cabin in Wisconsin, and spent three months working on Bon Iver’s first album, “For Emma, Forever Ago.” He hunted for food and focused on chores to pass the time. After a few weeks, he became tired of self-pitying caused by a rough breakup and began writing songs in the harsh Wisconsin winter.

“Just winter in general was kind of a part of where I was physically and metaphysically as well.” Vernon once said. “It bled into the music naturally. I had nothing but the sound of my own thoughts, and they were really loud when that’s all that was going on.”

There are darker stories. Peter Steele’s struggles with addiction and paranoia led to his confinement in a mental institution. The profound loneliness imprinted itself on his being and never left his side. Writer David Foster Wallace never found a place for himself under the sun and sadly took his own life.

And then there are stories like Scott Conner’s. A man who couldn’t cope with the struggles of daily life, whose demons cackled in his ear on a daily basis, who couldn’t stop himself from remembering and feeling. Scott refused to go down quietly and poured all his pain into music, creating phenomenal albums under the name Xasthur

Interviews with Scott are hard to watch – though he attempts to hide it, his suffering is crystal clear. Yet Scott never stopped fighting his darkness, and he is battling to this day. He turned his loneliness into a thing of terrifying beauty, a signal flare in the dark edges of his mind that told everyone, “Hey. I am here. I am alive.”

Isolation can result in astonishing accomplishments, but it’s a double-edged sword hard to keep in check. Tears and howling thoughts are its natural extensions, yet the emotions mesh with music like nothing else.

Decades ago, two men sat in a cabin called Bron-Yr-Aur and composed until the sun rose, again and again, creating a pillar of harmony that lighted the dark meadows around it. Loneliness swept in on silent wings and turned the world to crystal, and the fragments etched themselves on tapes, and years later someone who listened smiled.