6 Led Zeppelin Songs That Prove They Had a Soft Side
Led Zeppelin rose as perhaps the world’s greatest rock ‘n’ roll band in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Their mix of blues, psychedelic rock, and folk gave the world one of its first great heavy bands. Yet several Led Zeppelin songs proved the band had a soft side. Singer Robert Plant knew the band might mean something when they won over an American crowd before their debut album hit shelves, and they rocked like no one before, but five Led Zeppelin songs prove they were comfortable showing their delicate side (presented in chronological order).
1. ‘Thank You’
The second Led Zeppelin album, affectionately known as the Brown Bomber, cemented the band’s heavy blues bonafides. There’s not much respite from the blue-blooded rock ‘n’ roll. “Thank You” is one.
Jimmy Page’s acoustic guitar, John Paul Jones’ stately electric organ, and John Bonham’s even-handed drumming lend sincerity to Plant’s flower-power lyrics about loving and being loved. It sticks out like a sore thumb on Led Zeppelin II, but that was the point.
“Our quieter songs were designed to create dynamics both on the albums and in performances,” Page once said, per the Led Zeppelin Music Spotlight Collector’s Edition. “The harder songs wouldn’t have had as much impact without the softer ones.”
2. ‘Tangerine’
Founding guitarist Page dusted off this tune from his Yardbirds days for 1970’s Led Zeppelin III. The so-called acoustic album featured an ebb and flow between stompers and softer Led Zeppelin songs. The band veered toward rockabilly a few times, but the acoustic “Tangerine” might have been the closest they got to pure country and western music, including Page playing pedal steel.
Plant brings back some of the hippy-tinged lyrics of “Thank You” to sing of lost love (“I was her love / She was my queen / And now a thousand years between”). The words haven’t aged well, but the music — even one element Page regrets — holds up.
3. ‘That’s the Way’
Plant turns in a surprisingly delicate vocal performance on a song that rivals any of his story-like lyrical turns. The song tells the story of a boy whose parents won’t let him befriend a long-haired child who lives on “the darker side of town.”
Always an innovator in the control booth, Page displays his studio genius here, too. A gentle slide guitar hovers in the right speaker for most of the song, while acoustic guitars and mandolins stay in the left channel.
“That’s the Way” isn’t just one of Led Zeppelin’s underrated songs. Both thematically and musically, it’s one of the songs that proved Led Zeppelin had a soft side to counter their aggressive streak.
4. ‘Going to California’
Led Zeppelin III became known as the acoustic album even though it contained its share of heavier songs. Led Zeppelin IV never earned the acoustic distinction even though is features some of Led Zeppelin’s most delicate moments.
The first half of “Stairway to Haven” is basically a ballad before transforming into a full-out rocker. “Going to California” fully commits to being a ballad. Harking back to the third album, the song is all acoustic — just three-and-a-half minutes of guitar, mandolin, and vocals about starting over after falling out of love.
5. ‘The Rain Song’
Led Zeppelin and The Beatles briefly overlapped in the late 1960s. Zep took the torch as the world’s most popular band when the Fab Four split. Liverpool’s finest still exerted some pull in the mid-1970s, even though they had broken up. George Harrison’s critique that Led Zeppelin never wrote ballads inspired “The Rain Song,” the second track from 1975’s Houses of the Holy.
Several earlier songs (the tunes above, “Going to California”) proved Led Zeppelin had a soft side, but Page wrote this one as a direct response to Harrison. He even acknowledged the former Beatle by using the same chords at the beginning of “The Rain Song” as George used to start his hit “Something.”
Page’s acoustic guitar, Jones’ symphonic Mellotron, and Bonham’s gentle drumming guide “The Rain Song” as it builds from a gentle patter to a swelling storm and back again. Harrison wanted a ballad. What he got was one of the finest examples of Led Zeppelin’s soft side.
6. ‘All of My Love’
We end our list with the most obvious choice. You knew we couldn’t compile a list of Led Zeppelin’s delicate songs without this tune, right?
The lyrics of the Plant-Jones song from 1979’s In Through the Out Door focus on Karac Plant, who died suddenly in 1977. The vocals take center stage, though Jones’ symphonic keyboard playing (complete with a solo!) and Page’s delicate guitar riffs have their moments to shine.
“All of My Love” didn’t sit right with Page because he felt it was too soft. That didn’t seem to matter to fans, who embraced the song even though there was nary a distorted blues riff in sight. If it wasn’t already evident from the previous decade, “All of My Love” proved Led Zeppelin possessed a soft side, and they excelled while displaying it.
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