(Credits: Far Out / Andrew Smith)
Fri 2 January 2026 16:27, UK
As the lead guitarist of Led Zeppelin, Page was the archetypal rock god.
Nearly everything we associate with guitar heroes was at one time second nature to him, so it’s no surprise that Jack White was left speechless when he appeared alongside the rocker in It Might Get Loud.
One of the best moments from that classic documentary comes when Page is showing off some of his favourite riffs, one of which left White unable to say anything other than “Holy shit.” The riff in question is a particular point of pride for Page himself, who once went so far as to label it “addictive.”
The riff in question comes from a little number called ‘Whole Lotta Love’ from Led Zeppelin II. Deceptively simple and wonderfully sludgy, the track is partly based on ‘You Need Love’, originally written by Willie Dixon and immortalised by revered bluesman Muddy Waters. Page’s swaggering riff provides the perfect accompaniment to Robert Plant’s declarations of insatiable carnal desire. Indeed, some of the most red-blooded lyrics are directly lifted from Waters’ original recording, chiefly: “I ain’t foolin’, you need schoolin’ / Baby, you know you need coolin’ / Woman, way down inside.”
Opening up about the song’s origins, Page – who served as the producer on the track – told the Wall Street Journal: “When I played the riff for my band during rehearsals, the excitement was immediate and collective. We felt the riff was addictive, like a forbidden thing. As soon as I developed it, I knew it was strong enough to drive the entire song, not just open it.”
Jimmy Page, mid-riff. (Credits: Far Out / Alamy)
The strength of the main riff required some decidedly powerful drums, so Page put Bonham in the big room of Olympic Studios, which boasted a 28-foot ceiling. Studio engineer George Chkiantz put Bonzo’s drums on a platform to increase their resonance and set up room mics away from the kit to capture the sound of the space. “For the song to work as this panoramic audio experience,” Page recalled, “I needed Bonzo to really stand out, so that every stick stroke sounded clear and you could really feel them. If the drums were recorded just right, we could lay in everything else.”
“I knew with ‘Whole Lotta Love’ that there weren’t going to be any edits,” he said during another conversation about the track. “I insisted that they kept the middle section in it, which of course they didn’t like, but they had to do it. So I thought, well, if you just keep making the numbers longer and longer.”
The song would become an iconic moment in the group’s legacy, and Page knew right from the start that the tune would outlast some of their other work. “With ‘Whole Lotta Love’,” he told Total Guitar, “that was clearly going to be the track that everybody was going to go to, because that riff was so fresh and it still is. If somebody plays that riff it brings a smile to people’s faces. It’s a really positive thing.”
It worked a treat. On release in the US, ‘Whole Lotta Love’ became an instant hit. However, the UK branch of Atlantic Records wanted to press a shortened copy of the track without the iconic freak-out section at the four-minute mark. Page was quick to dismiss the suggestion, arguing in a press release that the song was part of their concept for the album and that a shortened version would do the band a disservice.
Since then, ‘Whole Lotta Love’ has become one of Led Zeppelin’s most beloved songs, not to mention one of the most recognisable tracks in the heavy rock canon. Long may it reign, that’s what I say.
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