I mean, it doesn’t get much more rock and roll than Led fucking Zeppelin. I’ve always looked at Zeppelin as the pinnacle of artistry and musicianship. My parents played a lot of Mothership and Led Zeppelin IV around the house when I was younger, so these songs on LZ IV take up a big part of the soundtrack to my childhood. 

The first of their songs that I really got into was “Stairway to Heaven.” I just remember being blown away at how effortlessly this song takes you on an eight-minute journey. Musically, it hits about every possible chord in the key of the song, changes time signatures multiple times, and they manage to make the entire song feel like an emotional rollercoaster. Each minute of the song is a build on the last. 

There are very few songs that make me feel the kind of energy build that this song does. It’s almost theatrical in a sense. When I was around eight or nine, me and my cousin decided one day that we wanted to learn all the words to “Stairway To Heaven.” My cousin had a Zeppelin shirt with the lyrics on the back of it, so we pinned it to his wall and spent literally an entire day singing along to this song on repeat until we memorized the lyrics. I can recite this entire song in my sleep to this day — ha! 

I think the reason Led Zeppelin has been such a massive part of everyone’s lives, especially for musicians, is because not only are they musical geniuses, but at the end of the day, they’re fucking rockstars.