The 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time: Jimmy Page.500 Greatest Albums of All Time: Led Zeppelin IV.The 100 Greatest Artists of All Time: Led Zeppelin.Every musician wants to do something of lasting quality, something which will hold up for a long time. It had everything there and showed us at our best. Page said the song 'crystallized the essence of the band. Over eight minutes, the song morphs into a furious Page solo that storms heaven's gate. The acoustic intro sounds positively Elizabethan, thanks to John Paul Jones' recorder solo and Plant's fanciful lyrics, which were partly inspired by Lewis Spence's historical tome Magic Arts in Celtic Britain. Photos: The Rolling Stones Live, 1964-2007Īll epic anthems must measure themselves against 'Stairway to Heaven,' the cornerstone of Led Zeppelin IV.The 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time: Keith Richards.The 100 Greatest Singers of All Time: Mick Jagger.The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time: Beggar's Banquet.'So that makes you start thinking about evil. 'Before, when we were just innocent kids out for a good time, 'They're evil, they're evil,'' Richards said.

The Stones ended up giving the devil one of their best grooves, built on Rocky Dijon's congas and Bill Wyman's Bo Diddley-ish maracas. Richards struggled to find the right backing for Jagger's menacing Dylan-esque lyrics, unsure 'whether it should be a samba or a goddamn folk song,' he recalled. The inspiration for this hellish detour came from Soviet writer Mikhail Bulgakov's novel The Master and Margarita, which depicts Satan having his way in 1930s Moscow. Songs like that come out in five minutes if I work on them more than, say, 20 minutes, they’re probably not going to work. As soon as you start, you get that magic feeling, an extra feeling. It’s how a basketball player must feel when he starts hitting every shot, when you’re in that zone. When I’m writing a song that I know is going to work, it’s a feeling of euphoria.

That song had everything - different melodies, opera, R&B, rock - and it explored all of those different genres in an authentic way, where it felt natural. A great song has all the key elements - melody emotion a strong statement that becomes part of the lexicon and great production. It takes the emotions of a moment and holds it for years to come.

When you hear a great song, you can think of where you were when you first heard it, the sounds, the smells. Click here for the new, updated 500 Greatest Songs list from 2021Ī great song doesn’t attempt to be anything - it just is.

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