[Top 5 Tuesday] Top 5 Led Zeppelin Songs

Yesterday in 1968, Plant + Page + Bonham + Jones played together for the first time. Here are my [Top5] Zeppelin songs, what are yours?

It was pretty damn hard to narrow down the entire Zeppelin catalog to just five songs, but that's the name of the game. My initial cut brought me down to 21 songs. A second pass eliminated 6, leaving me with 15. The hard cuts really began as I found my Top 10, and finally I managed to leave myself with just my [Top 5] (which is totally subject to change).

Honorable Mention - Moby Dick

Bonzo is my favorite drummer of all time, so I couldn't really leave this off the list completely. Still, since it doesn't include Plant, I didn't want to make it an official part (yeah I'm cheating, it's my list!).

5 - D'yer Mak'er

Plant always found it funny when fans tell him how much they love "Dire Maker".  It's atypical from almost all of Zep's other stuff, much more reggae than blues, but it's still one I love.

4 - I Can't Quit You Babe

This song gives me such a blues boner. The beat is slow and sultry, but turns bombastic on a dime. Page gives zippy guitar squeals that bounce perfectly off Page's vocals.

3 - You Shook Me

I had the hardest time narrowing down my favorite tracks from Zep's first album (which is why three of them show up on the list) and after a lot of fretting, I finally chose this one.

2 - Good Times Bad Times

Those sick triple bass kicks from Bonzo get me every. single. time.

1 - When the Levee Breaks

This was the second song I ever learned to play on the drums. It's an absolutely perfect example of Zep's skill as musicians as well as producers. They had the raw talent to pull off the song, but also had the studio intellect to take so many different effects (echo, flange, backwards echo, stereo panning) and put it all together but not have it sound cluttered.