One Of Led Zeppelin's Most Underrated Songs Came Together Almost By Accident

You know how it is with Led Zeppelin: "Stairway to Heaven" this, "Whole Lotta Love" that, and maybe "Immigrant Song" as well. But even a band as mighty as Led Zeppelin has overlooked songs in their discography, if only because classic rock radio stations have churned out the same repeats for decades. "Rock and Roll" is a plenty underrated and overshadowed track from the quartet's 1971 fourth album, "Led Zeppelin IV" (aka the untitled album), and came together practically by accident.

As the tale goes, the boys of Led Zeppelin were holed away at Headley Grange, England, a former 19th-century workhouse and famed recording spot for the likes of Genesis and Fleetwood Mac. While recording, they got stumped on "Four Sticks," a superb track that was eventually released on the B-side of the "Rock and Roll" single. Fans know how rhythmically weird the song is, which is why Zeppelin rarely played "Four Sticks" live. The tune took a long time to come together in the studio, and at one point Zeppelin had to take a break from it. That's when legendary drummer John Bonham decided to bash out a bit of Little Richard's "Keep a Knockin'" from 1957. Jimmy Page picked up the baton, played some old-school rock 'n' roll-style riff over it, and 30 minutes later the band had drafted "Rock and Roll." 

Plant's original name for the song was "It's Been a Long Time," as reflected in its lyrics, but it eventually morphed into "Rock and Roll," as if in tribute to the entire branch of music.

All it took to shake up Led Zeppelin's "Four Sticks" funk was a little fun '50s rockabilly, the kind of music that singer Robert Plant actively searched for as a kid. To call "Rock and Roll" a tribute is an understatement, although a fitting one given Zeppelin's place in rock history. "Rock and Roll" sounds like a straight-up throwback, blues-centered rock hit from the '50s, right down to Jimmy Page's thin guitar tone and the song's eighth-note piano hits in the third verse. There might not be any mandolins, such as in "The Battle of Evermore" — another song Led Zeppelin made up on the spot — but "Rock and Roll" has plenty of soul nonetheless. The public seemed to agree, as the song was a moderate hit that reached No. 47 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1972.

But even though "Rock and Roll" initially came together on the fly, it still took work to screw all the nuts and bolts into place. Running with the retro vibe, Plant also wanted the song's lyrics to reflect the '50s, hence lines such as "It's been a long time since I did the stroll" and "It's been a long time since the book of love," which reference a '50s dance (the stroll) and Monotones song ("The Book of Love"), respectively. 

In the end, the band's entire fourth album proved to be arguably their best work, including "Black Dog," "When the Levee Breaks, and "Stairway to Heaven," the last of which Led Zeppelin refused to release as a single, but it defined a generation anyway. "Rock and Roll's" spontaneous creation played its part in shaking up the recording process and injecting some energy into the proceedings.