Five fantastic 1970s songs with fascinating backstories

Led Zeppelin - “Rock And Roll”

Led Zeppelin released the magnificent Led Zeppelin IV album in 1971. Among its songs was the energetic and frenetic “Rock And Roll” with its distinctive drum opening to kick things off and keep the song driving forward. What an amazing song. Once again though it's one which was created quite quickly and informally.

The recording of another track, “Four Sticks”, from the album was getting tiresome, particularly for John Bonham. He wasn’t quite getting to grips with the drums for that song and needed to thrash it out of his system and start afresh. What better way to, do so than some good old rock and roll drumming?

Robert Plant remembers Bonham starting to play the drums for Little Richard's “Keep A-Knockin”, Jimmy Page joined in with a few riffs from that, although he has said later that he thought it was “Good Golly Miss Molly” Bonham had used. Page also recalls Robert Plant adding some vocals as the impromptu jam session flowed on. John Paul Jones added his contributions too.

The band was excited by the rapidly evolving bluesy and rocking song that was emerging and kept on going. Plant reckons that within 15 minutes they had it more or less finalised. Hello “Rock And Roll”, a classic song which still sounds great today was available to be added to the new album.  

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