“I can’t remember”: The Led Zeppelin song John Paul Jones had trouble playing

When Led Zeppelin was initially making a name for itself, John Paul Jones was proof to many people that the band were Satanists. You had Jimmy Page, John Bonham, and Robert Plant doing musical acrobatics on stage, the three who had evidently sold their souls to the devil. Meanwhile, you had John Paul Jones, rational and solid, clearly the member who turned Satan down.

While the casual observer might see his role in the band as boring, he was arguably the most critical member of Led Zeppelin. Geddy Lee once commented on how good Jones was at keeping Zeppelin together, as the only reason the other band members could all play so haphazardly was because John Paul Jones acted as the glue of the band.

“The thing that held the whole thing down was John Paul Jones’ bass playing,” said Lee, “So if you listen to ‘How Many More Times’, I mean, no matter how wild that song gets at times, there’s John Paul Jones just holding it all down in such a fluid way.”

John Paul Jones also has a great approach to music in general. He was always keen on writing music for Led Zeppelin, putting together complicated compositions that constantly challenged both listeners and his band members. He famously wrote the song ‘Black Dog’, which was considered one of the most challenging Led Zeppelin songs ever due to the fact that it was written in two different time signatures. The song was so complex that there was a conspiracy theory floating around that the only reason the band wrote the song was because they wanted to prove they were the best in the world.

While ‘Black Dog’ might be a complicated number, it’s not the song that John Paul Jones has struggled playing the most from the band. However, while some complications come from how difficult Led Zeppelin tracks are to play, this song was difficult because so much time had passed since they initially wrote it.

“Y’know, if you’re a Zep fan and really want to go see Zeppelin, you might as well go and see one of the better tribute bands,” said Jones, “Even when we played the O2 we didn’t play the same as we did in the old days, because you just can’t. I like to think it’s because one is endlessly creative, but it’s more because you can’t remember things! It’s as simple as that.”

One of the songs that Jones struggled to play the most proved tricky when the band was rehearsing for their reunion show at the O2. Given how long it had been since the band had played some of their songs, they struggled to remember how to play various songs, especially ones that had never been in previous setlists. This happened with the track ‘For Your Life’, which Led Zeppelin played for the first time at the O2 Arena.

“We played one number ‘For Your Life’ where I said: ‘Y’know, I really can’t remember what I’m supposed to play on this’. Page went: ‘I’m finding this difficult too. Jason [Bonham], why can’t we remember how to do this?’ And Jason just said: ‘Because you’ve never played it on stage before!’ We’d only played it once before, which was the day we recorded it – thirty-seven years ago.”