Essential Led Zeppelin: Their 40 greatest songs, ranked

Opening Led Zeppelin’s eponymous 1969 debut with coiled clang, “Good Times Bad Times” announced a revolution in heavy rock. Jimmy Page builds the song from the ground up, adorning his blunt riff with guitar arpeggios and vocal harmonies, letting this rush of sound part to deliver a guitar solo that ranks among his most succinct. That sense of control is a sign that this is an early masterwork, that Page is still relying on tricks he learned as an in-demand sessionman in the 1960s: all these ideas and flourishes clock in at under three minutes.

An adaptation of the old folk song “The Maid Freed From The Gallows,” “Gallows Pole” is the hardest rocking of the clutch of folk-rock songs at the core of Led Zeppelin III, but that’s not due to volume. The group attacks this standard, with Robert Plant singing as if it was roadhouse blues, but the star of this version is John Bonham. Once Bonzo enters two minutes deep into the cut, he transforms the feel of the music, overwhelming John Paul Jones’ turn on mandolin and Jimmy Page moonlighting on banjo.

The sessions for In Through The Out Door weren’t easy for Led Zeppelin. Jimmy Page was in the throes of addiction while Robert Plant was still processing the 1977 death of his 5-year-old son, traumas that came to a head on the gorgeous “All My Love.” Written by Plant and John Paul Jones—making it one of two Zeppelin songs with no Page co-writing credits—“All My Love” is an aching, open-hearted farewell to Plant’s son. The singer has rarely sounded so vulnerable as he does here and his band comes to his aid as Jones decorates the song with stately, baroque synthesizers that are nicely offset by country-tinged fills and solos by Page.

A lewd and lively rocker, “Custard Pie” doesn’t attempt to disguise its essential filth. Robert Plant’s come-ons are as greasy as Jimmy Page’s guitar, the two musicians clearly taking pleasure in turning a basic blues into sterling ’70s sleaze. And, make no mistake, “Custard Pie” is indeed sordid, its seediness apparent not only in Plant’s growl and Page’s ungainly tone but the chunky groove from a John Bonham who never loses sight that a blues this dirty needs to swing.

Deceptively relaxed in its verses, where Robert Plant murmurs sweet nothings as Jimmy Page plays jazzy seventh chords, “What Is And What Should Never Be” bursts into color on its chorus and coda. There, Led Zeppelin summons its full force in a shining example of Page’s patented “light and shade” production technique—a phrase he coined to explain his alternating textures and mood, the very thing that helps propel “What Is And What Should Never Be” to its heights.

John Bonham counts in “The Ocean” with the chant “we’ve done four already and now we’re steady,” then proceeds to lay down a monster groove, one that swings harder than most Led Zeppelin rockers. Maybe that sense of swing is the reason why the band decides to end “The Ocean” with an almost incongruous doo-wop conclusion, a coda that helps hammer home the general sense of high spirits that flows through this song.

A melancholic, stirring remembrance of lost love, “Ten Years Gone” is redolent with bittersweet nostalgia, yet the song doesn’t quite live in the past. Robert Plant may be remembering every detail he cherishes about a former lover but the emphasis lies not in the original romance but rather the remembrance. As he remembers how her face used to be, Plant is keenly aware that both lovers needed to leave to grow, an acknowledgment that gives this lovely song a true poignance.

Superficially another excursion into Middle-earth, “Misty Mountain Hop” isn’t quite as fanciful as its Tolkein title suggests. Unlike, say, “The Battle Of Evermore”—to cite another song on Led Zeppelin IV—Robert Plant’s lyric is about earthly concerns, inspired by arrests made at a pot legalization rally in London; the Misty Mountain represents the idealized world without such strife. As Plant pines for a better society, his band lays down a slippery, bluesy groove propelled by John Paul Jones vamping on an electric piano, a new texture and color for Zeppelin that makes “Misty Mountain Hop” unusually effervescent.

A country-rock rumination at the heart of Led Zeppelin III, the bruised “Tangerine” is wistful without being wispy. As Robert Plant pines for a long gone romance—”I was her love, she was my queen/And now a thousand years between”—Jimmy Page plays stately minor key chords that he decorates with glistening pedal steel that seems to cry as long and deep as Plant himself.

A bludgeoning blast that strips the blues away from rock, “Immigrant Song” might be the heaviest number Led Zeppelin ever cut. Inspired by a concert Zeppelin played in Reykjavik, Iceland in 1970, “Immigrant Song” teems with imagery of vikings and marauders. The suggestions of violence and mythical power in Robert Plant’s lyric are brought to vivid life by his spectral wail, Jimmy Page’s brutal riff and the thunder of John Paul Jones and John Bonham, who nearly overpower their bandmates here.

“Dancing Days” answers the question of what if Led Zeppelin were a glam-pop band. Unusually nimble, “Dancing Days” overspills with big hooks, as Jimmy Page’s riffs battle with themselves as Robert Plant sings a melody so bright, it almost seems incandescent. On top of all that, the groove by John Bonham and John Paul Jones not only is heavy, it swings. The title isn’t a lie: this is almost danceable.

A self-styled epic that continues down the path forged by “Immigrant Song” and “Kashmir,” “Achilles Last Stand” combines the intensity of the former with the cinematic mysticism of the latter. Proceeding at a breakneck gallop, “Achilles Last Stand” shows no quarter: John Paul Jones’ bass shakes the Earth as it competes for space with Jimmy Page’s mountains of guitar overdubs. Over the course of more than 10 minutes, the onslaught of sound can be exhausting but also exhilarating.

Allegedly inspired by George Harrison quipping that Led Zeppelin never did ballads—the former Beatle clearly never heard Led Zeppelin III—”The Rain Song” finds Jimmy Page refuting that statement by crafting a gorgeous melancholy masterpiece. For much of the song’s rapturous seven minutes, Page evokes the sound of rain at twilight by surrounding his shimmering guitars with washes of strings and John Paul Jones on mellotron. When John Bonham finally enters at the five minute mark, it’s not as a dose of thunder: his might helps deliver a conclusion that’s nearly orchestral in its majesty.

In some senses a continuation of the folk elements of Led Zeppelin III, “The Battle Of Evermore” also stands apart thanks to the presence of Sandy Denny. Then a former member of the British folk-rock institution Fairport Convention, Denny duets with Plant on this stark, haunting number, their interplay camouflaging how a good chunk of its lyric relies on allusions to Lord Of The Rings. As Plant and Denny harmonize and trade lines, the focus is not on the words but how their voices intertwine in a bewitching fashion.

Like “Stairway To Heaven,” “Over The Hills And Far Away” blends Led Zeppelin’s folk and rock sides, but where “Stairway” was structured as a suite building to a dramatic conclusion, “Over The Hills” finds the rock crashing into the folkie daydream set at the beginning of the song. Jimmy Page’s acoustic guitar doesn’t drop out of the mix once Zeppelin comes in at the 90-second mark: it remains the engine of the song, pushing it forward and giving Robert Plant’s sketches of love and the open road a hippie context.

Inscrutable, menacing murk given shape by a churning guitar riff, “No Quarter” is a moment of unalloyed darkness from Led Zeppelin. Trading in some of the same Viking imagery as “Immigrant Song,” “No Quarter” ups the ante by opting for insinuation over brute force. Heard among the groove-heavy horde on Houses Of The Holy, “No Quarter” sounds especially foreboding yet its gloomy fog has the ability to lower the temperature of a room at any time or place.

Robert Plant sounds as if he has hellhounds on his trail on “For Your Life,” one of the highlights on 1976’s Presence. Winding his way through a stuttering stop-start riff from Jimmy Page, Plant obsesses over descending into the pits in the city of the damned, his pain alleviated somewhat by a blizzard of guitar. Over his gnarled blues-based riff, Page layers ringing 12-string, chicken scratch rhythms and a languid guitar solo, alternately ratcheting up tension and providing relief. It’s a masterpiece of mood pinned down by an earthy, funky rhythm from John Bonham and John Paul Jones.

Originally intended as an instrumental fanfare—Jimmy Page’s working title was “The Overture”—“The Song Remains the Same” retains some elements of pageantry, particularly in Page’s rapid-fire 12-string riffing. Galloping out of the gate, Led Zeppelin slows down enough to let Robert Plant sing about hazy dreams and the track itself has a slight netherworld quality due to the tape being sped up slightly. The center seems on the verge of slipping, lending “The Song Remains The Same” a hint of instability that refutes its own title.

A bit of a cheat pairing these two album mates together but for the longest time, that’s how “Heartbreaker” and “Living Loving Maid (She’s Just A Woman)“ were heard on album rock radio: a continuous song, the smash cut from the heavy blues of the former leading to the blitzkrieg pop of the latter. The effectiveness of the sequencing is a testament to Jimmy Page’s smarts as a record maker but the match also showcases how Zeppelin twisted and subverted blues form. “Heartbreaker” rips a standard 12-bar structure wide open, finding space for an absurd gonzo guitar solo, then “Living Loving Maid” channels blues tropes into a hooky rocker that’s giddy and tacky enough to flirt with glam.

It’s with no small irony that Led Zeppelin, a band who disdained the very idea of singles, buried one of their best songs as a B-side. “Hey, Hey, What Can I Do” is born from the same sessions that produced Led Zeppelin III, but where that record leaned toward the wistful in its acoustic moments, this country-blues is a rowdy singalong. Robert Plant may be singing about a woman who won’t be true but this isn’t a downhearted ballad, it’s a blast, a rustic rocker with undeniable hooks and lyrics that are sharper and funnier than they need to be.

The cornerstone of Led Zeppelin III, “That’s The Way” was the quietest and saddest song Led Zeppelin released to date. The gentleness of “That’s The Way” is disarming: Robert Plant delivers his sketches of a friendship gone awry with an air of resignation and regret, emotions Jimmy Page matches not only with his strummed acoustic guitar but successive atmospheric production techniques, capped off by backwards tapes that give the song a languid, melancholy shimmer.

“Ramble On” introduced two enduring themes to the Led Zeppelin canon: folky wanderlust and a love of J.R.R. Tolkien. Zeppelin played folk before—the instrumental “Black Mountain Side” found Jimmy Page saluting English folk great Bert Jansch—but the pastoral roll of “Ramble On” provided a new texture for the band, as did Robert Plant’s full embrace of Tolkien: “Ramble On” can induce a reverie so sweet that it’s always a bit of a jolt to hear Plant sing about Gollum and Mordor on its final verse.

Nominally a blues—it follows the form, right down to Robert Plant’s carnal lyrics—“Black Dog” doesn’t feel as simple as that description suggests. The track is a call and response where Plant’s a cappella verses are answered by a winding, complicated riff and a groove that doesn’t quite follow a standard blues shuffle. All the slight variations, played with considerable heft by Zeppelin, make “Black Dog” sound like something more than a blues: it’s not merely a song, it’s a force of nature.

Left to their own devices, Robert Plant and John Paul Jones pushed Led Zeppelin in adventurous, unexpected directions on In Through The Out Door. Often, they favored dark textures—witness the lumbering “Carouselambra”—but with “Fool In The Rain,” they incorporated samba polyrhythms into a pop shuffle resulting in an ebullient change in pace for the heavy rockers. There’s still plenty of guitar here—Jimmy Page’s octave-doubling solo is exceptionally sloppy, which is why it’s thrilling—but this is all about the nimble groove and Plant’s clever storytelling, qualities that make “Fool In The Rain” buoyant and joyful.

Led Zeppelin’s homage to the glory days of rock and roll begins with John Bonham lifting Charles Connor’s opening beat to Little Richard’s “Keep A Knockin’” wholesale, setting the pace for a song that throws out allusions to a bunch of classic 45s from the days when Elvis Presley was king. Robert Plant doesn’t disguise his debt to Presley here, but the song isn’t a retro-rocker along the lines of his Honeydrippers project. The wham of Bonham and John Paul Jones when combined with the thick, dirty distortion of Jimmy Page’s guitar give this “Rock & Roll” a lively pulse that feels thoroughly modern.

“In The Evening” opens with ambient waves of analog synthesizers that feel like thunderclouds looming. Then, Robert Plant belts out the song’s title and there’s a crack of lightning as the rest of the band unleashes an unholy racket. John Paul Jones maintains an uneasy undercurrent with his synthesizers, leaving Jimmy Page space to deliver squalls of guitar—fury that’s underpinned by a big Bonham backbeat. Throughout it all, Plant sings like a man in torment, adding to the song’s menacing air.

Willie Dixon successfully sued Led Zeppelin for royalties on “Whole Lotta Love,” which does indeed contain elements of his “You Need Love,” but it’s likely Led Zeppelin learned the song through “You Need Loving,” a Small Faces variation. Listening to “You Need Loving,” it’s possible to hear similarities between Steve Marriott’s vocal phrasing and Robert Plant’s performance on “Whole Lotta Love,” yet Plant, like the rest of Zeppelin, uses their influences as a mere suggestion, reducing the blues-boogie to a bludgeoning rocker fueled by an elemental riff. Page’s simple, primal riff circles through “Whole Lotta Love,” ceasing only for a midsection freakout where Zeppelin trumps their “Dazed And Confused” explorations by creating a whirlwind of noise. Page ultimately brings the song back into focus with a stinging blues solo, but the memories of racket linger, making the riff sound even harder upon its closing return.

Opening with John Bonham laying down a rhythm that sounds like the apocalypse descending from the heavens, Led Zeppelin’s “When The Levee Breaks” is an astonishing reworking of an old blues song from Memphis Minnie and Kansas Joe McCoy. Where the original depicted a disastrous flood from 1927, the Zeppelin version sounds like the flood itself. The rest of the band follow Bonham’s thundering lead, with Robert Plant’s vocals scuffed up with distortion and Jimmy Page’s slide guitar sounding like waves crashing ashore.

Where the rest of Led Zeppelin’s debut expanded outward, “Communication Breakdown” is a concentrated detonation, two and a half minutes of absolute fury. In a sense a throwback to the earliest days of rock and roll—it’s not a million miles away from Zeppelin’s supercharged live cover of Eddie Cochran’s “Something Else”—“Communication Breakdown” also seems to point the way toward the future. While Robert Plant’s piercing wail remains tied to classic rock, the way Jimmy Page’s primal riff finds a match in John Bonham’s pulverizing beat—there’s no swing, only aggression—feels raw and vital, almost like a precursor to punk.

A masterpiece of dramatic tension, “Kashmir” finds Led Zeppelin creating a mideastern fantasy, one that’s not tied to any specific geographical region. Robert Plant wrote his first draft of “Kashmir” not after visiting India but rather Morocco. That transference is the key to the song’s power: it sounds as if it was born in an endless, arid desert that could exist in any number of locales. Similarly, Zeppelin draws from many musical sources, with Jimmy Page’s hypnotic drone emanating from a folky open tuning and John Bonham giving his beats so much space they sound funky. The band marshals all their strengths to deliver a masterpiece that’s painted at a cinematic scale.

Once so ubiquitous its very title served as an easy punchline, “Stairway To Heaven” remains a thing of wonder. A crystallization of nearly everything Led Zeppelin did well, “Stairway To Heaven” captures their delicate folk-rock side and their overwhelming might, building from a gently plucked opening section to a cataclysmic conclusion. The two sides are connected by a towering lyrical guitar solo from Jimmy Page—it has a narrative thrust of its own—yet it could be argued that the glue of the song is Robert Plant, who sells the slow build and the soaring climax not just with power but with nuance.