{"id":240238,"date":"2025-11-02T21:30:14","date_gmt":"2025-11-02T21:30:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/240238\/"},"modified":"2025-11-02T21:30:14","modified_gmt":"2025-11-02T21:30:14","slug":"what-led-zeppelin-songs-are-credited-to-all-four-members","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/240238\/","title":{"rendered":"What Led Zeppelin songs are credited to all four members?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Led<\/p>\n

(Credits: Far Out \/ Alamy)<\/p>\n

Sun 2 November 2025 19:27, UK <\/p>\n

Even a band as great as Led Zeppelin<\/a> will have the admin credentials of a small army behind their legacy. It\u2019s an ugly side of the music business that is hard to shake. Not only is art a business, but it is a particularly litigious business to boot. <\/p>\n

It\u2019s tricky, divvying up the credit afforded to an entire band. Bruce Springsteen famously got his nickname as The Boss because he would take it upon himself to dish out the pay packets after a show or tour; however, when looking at the album and single sales, things can get a little bit trickier. <\/p>\n

The kind of royalties most of us dreamed of when setting our sights on rock and roll stardom is only handed out to the song\u2019s credited writers, which means there is often a clamour for certain members of the band to put their names to the odd song here and there. Led Zeppelin suffered a similar fate.<\/p>\n

Like The Beatles before them, Led Zeppelin were blessed with musical talent. But while the Fab Four had a singular songwriting partnership at the foundation of the journey in john Lennon and Paul McCartney, Led Zeppelin were buoyed by four equally impressive musicians. Sure, George Harrison would pen some of the band\u2019s better songs<\/a>, and Ringo Starr\u2019s contribution to the band\u2019s numbers is undoubted; there was a marked difference in musical talent between the bands.<\/p>\n

As such, while Jimmy Page had already had his hand in some chart-topping hits via his work as a session musician before finding fame with The Yardbirds, and Robert Plant had equally enjoyed some of the spotlights, the band were a tight music-making unit. Compounded by the immense talent of John Bonham on drums and John Paul Jones\u2019 unique vision for arrangements, Led Zeppelin were always set up as a highly functioning machine. However, like many bands before them, only Jimmy Page and Robert Plant received the majority of the songwriting credits.<\/p>\n

\"Led<\/a>Led Zeppelin in an English field. (Credits: Far Out \/ Alamy)<\/p>\n

In fact, there are only eight songs, discounting those adapted from old blues numbers<\/a>, in which all four members of the band were credited as songwriters. Out of over 100 tunes they released, that is a remarkably small number. Of course, using the whole band as collateral when adapting songs from Willie Dixon and Robert Johnson was a shrewd and possibly litigiously minded move, but the group rarely held credits as a unit.<\/p>\n

Of course, the reality is, that all four members of the band, with their wild talents in hand, were always involved in the final production and preening of every song. As John Paul jones reflected in the 1980s when discussing the increase of credit on In Through the Out Door: \u201cI was always involved with that stuff on all the albums, but I got more credits on that album because Page was less involved with it. Basically, I was at rehearsals earlier, and Robert and I more or less wrote that album together.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn all honesty, I\u2019d say that I probably should have paid much more attention to the writing credits in the earlier days of Zeppelin,\u201d Jones continued. \u201cIn those days, I\u2019d just say, \u2018Well, I wrote that, but it\u2019s part of the arrangement,\u2019 or something like that, and I\u2019d just let it go. Not realising at the time that that part of the arrangement had more to do with the writing than just arranging something. I always thought that John Bonham\u2019s contribution was always much more than he ever received credit for as well. In fact, I know it was.\u201d<\/p>\n

So, which songs have all members of Led Zeppelin as writers?<\/p>\n

Looking through some of the songs credited to all four members, there is a case that some of their best work was completed as a songwriting quartet. For example, the belting \u2018Communication Breakdown\u2019 is one of the band\u2019s hardest rocking anthems. \u2018Good Times Bad Times\u2019 from the same debut album is another cherishable moment. While \u2018The ocean\u2019 shows the band\u2019s softer side, \u2018Heartbreaker\u2019 may literally be one of the band\u2019s finest efforts.<\/p>\n

Jones summed up the band and the lunacy of songwriting credits by noting: \u201cZeppelin was really a partnership between four people, and sometimes when you see songs with \u2018Page-Plant\u2019 on everything, it makes it seem like it was a \u2018Lennon-McCartney\u2019 situation where they wrote everything and John and I just kind of learned the songs that Jimmy and Robert taught to us [laughs]. That\u2019s so far from the truth, it\u2019s ridiculous.\u201d<\/p>\n

In truth, the band had a whole run of incredible songs that can legitimately be filed under the Led Zeppelin moniker. Some of their most beloved tracks weren\u2019t just the creation of one person, or a partnership, but the entire group. If there was one thing that separated Led Zeppelin from the rest of the 1960s set it was always that they were as equally good at their respective instruments as any other band possessed. <\/p>\n

The only Led Zeppelin songs credited to all four members:\u2018Communication Breakdown\u2019 \u2013 Led Zeppelin (1969)\u2018Darlene\u2019 \u2013 Coda (1982)\u2018Good Times Bad Times\u2019 \u2013 Led Zeppelin (1969)\u2018Heartbreaker\u2019 \u2013 Led Zeppelin II (1969)\u2018In My Time of Dying\u2019 \u2013 Physical Graffiti (1975)\u2018The Ocean\u2019 \u2013 House of the Holy (1973)\u2018Rock and Roll\u2019 \u2013 Led Zeppelin IV (1971)\u2018Royal Orleans\u2019 \u2013 Presence (1976)<\/p>\n

Related Topics<\/p>\n

The Far Out Led Zeppelin Newsletter<\/p>\n

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Straight to your inbox.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"(Credits: Far Out \/ Alamy) Sun 2 November 2025 19:27, UK Even a band as great as Led…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":225371,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[96,23795,25705,33124,10866,128,23837,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-240238","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-jimmy-page","10":"tag-john-bonham","11":"tag-john-paul-jones","12":"tag-led-zeppelin","13":"tag-music","14":"tag-robert-plant","15":"tag-uk","16":"tag-united-kingdom","17":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/240238","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=240238"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/240238\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/225371"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=240238"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=240238"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=240238"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}