Shakespeare References in Hammer Of The Gods

Hammer Of The Gods, Stephen Davis' book about Led Zeppelin, contains a couple of Shakespeare references. The first is to The Second Part Of King Henry The Fourth, with Davis writing, "Like most of the songs on this album, 'Achilles' was given strange guitar fanfares and a gloomy coda that rang its changes like chimes at midnight" (p. 263). The phrase "chimes at midnight" is spoken by Falstaff in Act III Scene ii: "We have heard the chimes at midnight, Master Shallow." The other reference is to A Midsummer Night's Dream, and the reference is actually contained in the title of a television program. Davis writes, "A few days later he taped performances for Top of the Pops and A Midsummer Night's Tube, and then went to court to prevent what he felt was an inferior performance from running on the Tube show" (p. 311).

Hammer Of The Gods was published in 1985. The copy I read is from the First Ballantine Books Edition published in 1986, and it contains another short chapter about the Live-Aid performance.