Pat Dollard | Young Americans

The Independent:

It has been delighting fans for almost 40 years but Led Zeppelin’s rock classic “Whole Lotta Love” has been deemed too racy by Olympics organisers.

After choosing the song for the closing ceremony on Sunday they decided that some of the lyrics would have to be omitted or re-written amid concerns that they could cause offence.

The song was chosen as the centrepiece of an eight-minute £2.5million British segment at the event in Beijing at which the Olympic flag will be officially passed to the London Mayor Boris Johnson.

Organisers of the London 2012 Games commissioned the band’s guitarist Jimmy Page to record a new version of the song to be performed on top of a special red double-decker bus accompanied by Leona Lewis, winner of the ITV reality television show The X Factor, with David Beckham looking on.

But, according to London 2012 officials, Lewis - who grew up in east London close to the Olympic site - requested a change to the song’s second verse because she was worried they would not make sense for a female singer.

In the original, recorded in 1969, frontman Robert Plant sings, “I’m gonna give you every inch of my love”.

But in the version that will be sung tomorrow, however, Lewis changes the words to “every bit” of my love.

The band also agreed to a request from organisers to drop the third verse, which includes similar sexual innuendoes, to fit in to the eight-minute performance.

Leona Lewis

With an estimated two billion around the world expected to tune in for the closing ceremony, the British segment will throw the spotlight firmly on preparations for the London Games in four years time.
Celebrations are being planned at 30 sites across Britain to celebrate the handover.
Tens of thousands of people are expected to gather in the Mall as the skies above Buckingham Palace are turned the colours of the Union Flag by the Red Arrows display team.