Robert Plant Records Song for Refugee Benefit Album

On Feb. 26, 2016, an album to raise money for the British Red Cross in their attempts to provide support to refugees in the U.K. will be released. One of the artists contributing to The Long Road is Robert Plant, who recorded a cover of Elbow's "The Blanket of Night."

“We have a worldwide international catastrophe," Plant said. "Talking about it is one thing, doing something about it is another. The position we are in, it’s paramount we all do our best one way or another to help.”

"The Blanket of Night" appeared on Elbow's 2014 record The Take Off and Landing of Everything. Its lyrics concern a refugee couple unsure of their future as they travel by boat: "The ocean that bears us from our home / Could save us or take us for its own / The danger that life should lead us here / My angel, could I have steered us clear?"

The other tracks on The Long Road also deal with the plights of refugees and asylum-seekers. It's produced by Ethan Johns, the son of legendary rock producer Glyn Johns, who has made quite a reputation on his own over the past 15 years, working with such names as Paul McCartney, Kings of Leon and Ryan Adams.

For this project, Johns has brought in musicians from around the world such as Tinariwen, a Tuareg band from Mali whose frontman's father was executed during an uprising in 1963, spoken word artist Scroobius Pip and the Sierra Leone Refugee All Stars. You can pre-order it here.

"I wanted to get involved because it's a story worth telling," Johns said. "The idea is to educate people a little more about what people go through, to put their stories in some kind of context. They're not just bodies getting off a boat".

To learn more about what the British Red Cross is doing for refugees, visit their website.

Robert Plant Albums, Ranked Worst to Best

You Think You Know Robert Plant?