![\"Led](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/11\/Led-Zeppelin-Jimmy-Page-Robert-Plant-John-Paul-Jones-John-Bonham-Far-Out-Magazine-02-F-1140x855.jpg\")
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Credit: Far Out \/ julio zeppelin<\/p>\n
November 9th, 2026 \u00b7 3:58pm GMT <\/p>\n
Following the disbandment of the Yardbirds in 1968, Led Zeppelin<\/a> was formed by guitarist Jimmy Page, who brought together three immensely talented musicians to complete the stable lineup: Robert Plant on lead vocals, John Paul Jones on bass guitar and keyboards, and John Bonham behind the drums. <\/p>\n By the end of the 1960s, Led Zeppelin had released their first two albums and were already a considerable presence, rivalling The Rolling Stones and The Who for the rock throne. All-time classics like \u2018Good Times Bad Times\u2019, \u2018Dazed and Confused\u2019, \u2018Whole Lotta Love\u2019 and \u2018Ramble On\u2019 had already arrived, but the best was still yet to come. <\/p>\n Through the early 1970s, Led Zeppelin released their most critically and commercially favoured albums, beginning with Led Zeppelin III. The album began on a powerful note with the rather violent and martial-sounding \u2018Immigrant Song\u2019, a track Plant views as a \u201cridiculous\u201d hit of history for kids.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat a shame \u2018Immigrant Song\u2019 isn\u2019t easy for kids to play, by the way,\u201d he added in a 2023 interview with Vulture. \u201cEveryone gets it, young and old. It\u2019s a great song. Not only slightly ridiculous but ridiculous. Considering that we wrote it in midair leaving Iceland \u2014 a fantastically inspiring gig and an adventure, beyond which there will be no books written.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI thought \u2018Immigrant Song\u2019 was great because it goes back to the Dark Ages effect on my being,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019m sitting here looking out into the darkness in the building that was built in the 15th century. It\u2019s not a fancy building, it\u2019s just a building that\u2019s been brought back from a thousand different deaths. I know that before the Civil War before Cromwell came through here, and before everybody would hide. Before, before, before, before, before, before. That Viking side of stuff is very funny.\u201d <\/p>\n Elsewhere on Led Zeppelin III, the band brought their penchant for complexity to \u2018Four Sticks\u2019<\/a>. The song was named after its incredibly difficult drum beat, which kept Bonham in a state of constant frustration during the recording sessions. While recording the difficult track, Bonham allegedly became so impatient that he gave up on \u2018Four Sticks\u2019 to play the intro for Little Richard\u2019s \u2018Keep a Knockin\u201d.<\/p>\n With \u2018Four Sticks\u2019 on ice for a moment, the band decided to work on Bonham\u2019s tangential beat. With the addition of Page\u2019s guitar structures, the song was mostly drafted within 30 mins, under the working title \u2018It\u2019s Been a Long Time\u2019. When Plant\u2019s lyrics<\/a> were finalised for the album, it was renamed \u2018Rock and Roll\u2019.\u00a0<\/p>\n You can hear that release in the finished recording. Bonham\u2019s introduction practically throws the door open, and Page answers with a riff that needs very little explanation. The familiar blues framework gives everyone room to move without having to negotiate another elaborate change of direction. <\/p>\n Plant sounds delighted to be let loose over it, stretching his phrases while the band keeps charging underneath him. For a group capable of making rock music feel mysterious, monumental and occasionally forbidding, this is wonderfully approachable. The excitement comes from four musicians knowing exactly how to push one another, with enough shared instinct to make a straightforward song sound enormous.<\/p>\n \u201cWe just thought rock and roll needed to be taken on again,\u201d Plant said of the classic song in an interview with Creem in 1988. \u201cI was finally in a really successful band, and we felt it was time for actually kicking ass. It wasn\u2019t an intellectual thing, \u2019cause we didn\u2019t have time for that \u2013 we just wanted to let it all come flooding out. It was a very animal thing, a hellishly powerful thing, what we were doing.\u201d<\/p>\n That directness also gives \u2018Rock and Roll\u2019 an important place on the fourth album. Coming after the stop-start exchanges of \u2018Black Dog\u2019, it lets the listener settle into a groove before \u2018The Battle of Evermore\u2019 and \u2018Stairway to Heaven\u2019 carry the record somewhere stranger. <\/p>\n Zeppelin could make room for both impulses without either feeling like a concession. Page later connected the riff to the brass arrangements on Little Richard\u2019s records, which makes sense of its punchy, answering phrases.The song carries that earlier music\u2019s excitement into a heavier setting, preserving the invitation to dance even as Bonham makes the floor feel liable to collapse.<\/p>\n Watch Led Zeppelin perform \u2018Rock and Roll\u2019 live in 1979 below.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n![\"Robert](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/11\/Robert-Plant-Singer-1976-Led-Zeppelin-Far-Out-Magazine-1024x768.jpg\")
<\/a>Credit: Far Out \/ Led Zeppelin<\/p>\n
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