Thor Ragnorak’s director, Taika Waititi, doesn’t come from a typical action movie background. A bit like Guardians of the Galaxy’s James Gunn and Captain America’s Russo brothers, Waititi’s career is rooted in comedy and indie films (Flight of the Conchords, What We Do in the Shadows, Hunt for the Wilderpeople).
If anything, he’s the most quirky and uniquely talented director that Marvel have hired so far. And it was partly through his use of Immigrant Song that he secured the Thor job in the first place, having put together a demo reel to showcase what he had in mind for the film.
“I put Immigrant Song over the top of it, and then played it for them,” Waititi said in an interview with Den of Geek. “And they were like, ‘Oh that’s really cool. That’s a cool song. What’s that?’ I was like, [deadpan] ‘It’s Immigrant Song, Led Zeppelin, one of the most famous songs of all time.’ They were like, ‘Oh cool, never heard it before, very cool.’
“And I was like, ‘Oh f—, really worried now.’ Er, and then, yeah, when I got the job. But from the start we’d always talked about using Immigrant Song, in the film, because it just makes perfect sense for that character, doesn’t it?”
The song only makes perfect sense for Thor if you’ve heard and deciphered the lyrics:
Ah-ah, ah!
Ah-ah, ah!We come from the land of the ice and snow
From the midnight sun, where the hot springs flow
The hammer of the gods
W’ell drive our ships to new lands
To fight the horde, and sing and cry
Valhalla, I am coming!On we sweep with threshing oar
Our only goal will be the western shoreAh-ah, ah!
Ah-ah, ah!We come from the land of the ice and snow
From the midnight sun where the hot springs flow
How soft your fields so green
Can whisper tales of gore
Of how we calmed the tides of war
We are your overlordsOn we sweep with threshing oar
Our only goal will be the western shoreSo now you’d better stop and rebuild all your ruins
For peace and trust can win the day despite of all your losingOoh-ooh, ooh-ooh, ooh-ooh
Ooh-ooh, ooh-ooh, ooh-ooh
Ooh-ooh, ooh-ooh, ooh-ooh
Ooh-ooh, ooh-ooh, ooh-ooh
Ooh-ooh, ooh-ooh, ooh-ooh
For a long time it was notoriously difficult to get permission to use one of Led Zeppelin’s songs, but the times, they are a-changing:
When this particular track was used on 2003’s School of Rock, Jack Black had to personally beg for it after director Richard Linklater failed to persuade them. He won them over by filming himself singing in front of a huge crowd, pleading for their permission.
The song has its own origin story:
Immigrant Song was the only single released internationally from Led Zeppelin III, but the band were dead set against selling singles in the UK and so it – like all their others – was not available here. On the US 45 RPM single, however, the band had the Alastair Crowley quote “Do What Thou Wilt… So Mote Be It” inscribed into the dead wax.
Though the music was already written, featuring a menacing staccato riff from Jimmy Page, it was while the band were on tour in Iceland that the lyrics were reworked with a Norse war cry and Viking-inspired imagery.
“We weren’t being pompous,” Plant told journalist Chris Welch for his book Led Zeppelin: Dazed Confused. “We did come from the land of the ice and snow. We were guests of the Icelandic Government on a cultural mission. We were invited to play a concert in Reykjavik and the day before we arrived all the civil servants went on strike and the gig was going to be cancelled. The university prepared a concert hall for us and it was phenomenal. The response from the kids was remarkable and we had a great time. ‘Immigrant Song’ was about that trip and it was the opening track on the album that was intended to be incredibly different.”