10 worst led zeppelin songs

[rone]

#10: "Bonzo's Montreux"  God rest his hard-drinking soul, but this percussion solo is wanktacular.

#9: "Night Flight"  I can't put my finger on what bothers me about this song, but i do know i skip it a lot when it comes on.

#8: "Down By the Seaside"  Like they were trying to do a Donovan pastiche.  Just wrong.

#7: "All My Love"  Overplayed, and a wretched keyboard solo by Jonesy.

#6: "D'yer Mak'er"  Reggae.  So bad it was covered by Sheryl Crow.  `Nuff said.

#5: "No Quarter"  A boring and overly long dirge.  Tool's cover is about 20 times better than the original.

#4: "Tangerine"  Squishy.  This track really shows off the poor production of the album, especially where in many songs, the vocal tracks are off-key from each other.

#3: "Thank You"  Starkly bereft of any of the musicality that makes Led Zeppelin great.

#2: "Your Time Is Gonna Come"  Melodramatic and overblown.

#1: "Hey Hey What Can I Do"  Inane.  So bad it was covered by Hootie and the Blowfish.

Comments

[pentomino.livejournal.com]

The problem with Led Zeppelin songs is that it's not really easy to identify them by title.

[also-huey.livejournal.com]

No Quarter?

That's it, you're dead to me.

[ronebofh.livejournal.com]

Suck it, gramps.

[covertmusic.livejournal.com]

D'yer Maker at least inspired a pretty decent song by the Hold Steady (http://www.last.fm/music/The+Hold+Steady/_/Joke+About+Jamaica).

[ikkyu2.livejournal.com]

These are some crappy songs. "The Ocean" and "Moby Dick" and "Rock and Roll" belong on here somewhere. I, too, disagree with the inclusion of "No Quarter," and I actually wouldn't throw "Hey Hey What Can I Do" out - you know they didn't write it, it's an old blues standard. I also like the last 15 seconds of 'Thank You.'

You know what, now I'm looking through tracklists, there are a lot of ass songs here. I didn't realize they wrote so much crap. How did "Celebration Day" and "Carouselambra" not make this list? And what about side two of Presence, possibly the shittiest side ever recorded? Not to mention, why did you put a song from Coda on this list? Coda is not Zep. It is its own thing, which is a shitty thing.

What brought this on? Is there a top ten list forthcoming?

[ronebofh.livejournal.com]

"Moby Dick" is fairly self-indulgent but at least it's fun. "Rock and Roll" is a simple song but it's played with a lot of energy; yeah, overplayed to hell, i know. But "The Ocean" is a fantastic song with its ever-changing meters and the smooth finish; how can you possibly hate it? HHWCID may be an old blues standard, but so is a good amount of what they recorded.

"Celebration Day" and "Carouselambra" missed the cut but were considered, as was side two of Presence with the exception for "Tea for One", for which i have a soft spot on my heart; i know it's not a great song but i think it's really well done and the intro kicks ass. I can see Coda not counting as part of an album ranking, but all tracks recorded were considered.

I have considered both top and bottom 10 for a while. pen_shui nudged me towards posting this, so i suppose i'll have to follow through with its counterpart next year.

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

I like "Rock and Roll", I don't care what anyone says.

But I'm not that Zep-knowledgeable in general.

[filthy-habit.livejournal.com]

I can't really say that I agree or disagree with the list. While I think a dozen or so LZ songs might be among the best ever, by anyone, they did do a lot of crap as well. However, being a somewhat competent and appropriately worshipful drummer, I have to say that Bonzo is about as close to god as an atheist can get, and His Simple Presence saved a lot of those songs that would otherwise be destined to be fruitless noise. There are moments of pure brilliance, for example, in "D'yer Mak'er" and "No Quarter" that save those tunes from the dustbin of total mediocrity. Even the simple triplets in "All My Love" are worthy of some attention, though, overall, the song can be tossed off as a bit of wanking on the part of Robert Plant.

And, seriously, when Robert Plant wanked, that was the sure sign that an LZ tune sucked. So, I helpfully contribute "Ramble On," "Living Loving Maid" and "Stairway to Heaven" to the list. And "Heartbreaker" never really resonated with me either, though that was a pure Jimmy Page wankfest.

[pennyhill.livejournal.com]

Heh! Lovely! What fun to do this. I wonder how close we'd be on a 10 Best list.

I have to agree with all your "worst" songs, although I'd be challenged to rank them as you so boldly did. I'd just throw them all in the "oh, this is pretty dreadful, lads" bag and make Robert take out the garbage, for his contribution to the drek is significant. Bless his maturing heart, as he grew up he did write some excellent lyrics later on.

Like a previous commenter, I'd also throw Friends in the stinky bag.

And like you, I am fond of Tea for One. It is so much more genuine/real than, say, The Rain Song, which self-consciously takes itself too seriously and is tainted (like a lot of the songs) by majorly sucky lyrics.

And I send raspberries to those who diss Coda.

[also-huey.livejournal.com]

There's an amazing guitar player from Indianapolis named PK Lavengood -- last I heard he was the lead guitar player in John Eddie's band, and I think he first appeared on some of the songs from "Who the Hell
Is John Eddie?", which actually got some radio airplay -- and one of his signature tunes when he was playing solo is a bluegrass flatpicking cover of The Rain Song, played slightly faster than twice the speed of the original.

And it fuckin' rocks. The Rain Song was totally born to be The Rain Song Mountain Breakdown.

[pennyhill.livejournal.com]

The Rain Song Mountain Breakdown! Tee hee.

[ronebofh.livejournal.com]

I like "Friends". It's got good complexity. It just suffers from III's bad production.

[filthy-habit.livejournal.com]

"The Rain Song." That's an easy one to forget about. Horrible. I think it is the only LZ song that I have specifically deleted from my iTunes library---never to be heard again if I can help it. I spent years trashing the otherwise listenable HotH because of that one song.

[ronebofh.livejournal.com]

Man, i like "The Rain Song". It's got that languid, smooshy feel that some of the songs on the list have, except it totally works for me.

[syringavulgaris.livejournal.com]

Fourteen-year-old self is wildly waving fists at your disrespect of D'yer Mak'er.