Jimmy Page playing with Led Zeppelin in 1973 (Image: GRAHAM WILTSHIRE/Redferns)
When your back catalogue is jam-packed with a whole lotta hits being asked to choose your favourite tasks must be similar to a parent being asked to pick a favourite child. It’s a choice Led Zeppelin’s guitarist and de facto band leader Jimmy Page must have grappled with for decades as fans pester him to choose his favourite song or album.
However, in a past interview, that’s exactly what the six-string virtuoso did as he made the ultimate choice and selected his preferred track. The sheer volume of Led Zeppelin tracks – officially put at 92 releases songs – means that the rock legend has a tricky job to even remember all of them from the band’s glory years of the 1970s. Led Zeppelin were a full-time working band for about a dozen years and released eight albums during their lifetime, with a later rarities collection bringing their total studio output to nine LPs.
With bandmates John Paul Jones, John Bonham and Robert Plant (Image: Hulton Archive/Getty Images)
But prior to their split in 1980 Page and his band-mates John Bonham, John Paul Jones and Robert Plant cemented their reputation as all time rock gods who pretty much reshaped and defined how heavy music sounded going forward.
And arguably 45 years on they still remain one of the biggest selling bands in the world with fans still eager for 81-year-old Page and singer Plant, 76, to reunite with third surviving member, bass player John Paul Jones, 79, for a final reunion after their previous one-off get-together at London’s O2 in 2007 sold out in minutes.
But if they did take to the stage one last time which are the ultimate Led Zeppelin tracks Page would most look forward to playing?
From previous interviews given over the years it appears that three tracks stand head and shoulders above others and these have now been collated by Far Out magazine.
Jimmy Page today (Image: Vittorio Zunino Celotto/Getty Images)
Jimmy Page’s three favourite Led Zeppelin songs:
‘Whole Lotta Love’
The opening track on the band’s second album, Led Zeppelin II, was released as a single in 1969 in several countries but as with other Led Zeppelin songs, no single was released in the United Kingdom. In the United States, it became their first hit and was certified gold. Parts of the song’s lyrics were adapted from Willie Dixon’s “You Need Love”, recorded by Muddy Waters in 1962; originally uncredited to Dixon, a lawsuit in 1985 was settled with a payment to Dixon and credit on subsequent releases.
Page has said he came up with iconic guitar riff in the summer of 1968, on his houseboat on the River Thames at Pangbourne, Berkshire, however John Paul Jones sparked a row by saying it was “probably” developed during a live improvisation performances of “Dazed and Confused”.
During its recording the band recorded John Bonham’s drums in a room with 28ft ceilings and got their engineer to twiddle “every knob known to man” to produce the riotous sound.
Expressing his love for the song Page once said: “When you hear it you see just how much work went into the final version of ‘Whole Lotta Love’. I think that’s one of my favourites.”
‘Kashmir’
Kashmir from their sixth studio album Physical Graffiti (1975), was written by Jimmy Page and Robert Plant with contributions from John Bonham over a period of three years with lyrics dating to 1973. John Paul Jones was late arriving to the studio for the recording sessions, so did not receive a writer’s credit.
The song became a concert staple, performed by the band at almost every concert after its release. It has been described as one of Led Zeppelin’s two most overtly progressive epics alongside Stairway to Heaven. The lyrics were written by Plant in 1973 immediately after Led Zeppelin’s 1973 US tour however none of the group members had actually ever visited Kashmir. Instead Plant was inspired during a drive through a desolate desert area of southern Morocco.
For Page the source of his love for the track comes down to how happy he is with how his riff work was so foundational it provided huge expansive scope.
”I suppose ‘Kashmir’ has to be the one. I knew that this wasn’t just something guitar-based,” he told Rolling Stone.
”In addition, all of the guitar parts would be on there. But the orchestra needed to sit there, reflecting those other parts, doing what the guitars were but with the colours of a symphony. John Paul Jones scored that. But I said, ‘John, this is what it’s got to be.‘ I knew it, and I heard it.” And soon, the bellow came to roaring fruition and remains one of their biggest hits.
With Robert Plant in concert (Image: Jay Dickman/CORBIS/Corbis via Getty Images)
‘Since I’ve Been Loving You’
“Since I’ve Been Loving You” was one of the first songs prepared for the epic Led Zeppelin III album and has stood the test of time despite being recorded live in the studio with very little overdubbing.
Page believes the song displays the multiple strengths of the band as a unit of super-talented individuals.
He said: “That shows how the four of us worked so well together. Obviously, we rehearsed the number and count one, two, three, four, pressed the red light and that’s what you have.
The track is essentially a simple blues track the band elevated into something that suited their larger-than-life style; but in doing so they made a lasting rod for their own backs with its complexity.
However Page has consistently referenced the track, heavily inspired by Moby Grape’s 1968 track ‘Never’ as one of his favourites.