“This is going to work”: the song that started Led Zeppelin

What can you say about Led Zeppelin that has not already been said? They were the band that changed rock music forever, paving the way for the emergence of hard rock and metal, in addition to establishing many of the rock star stereotypes that still prevail today. Private jets, a different city every night, copious amounts of hairspray, and a messiah complex to boot, Zeppelin were the band that started it all, and they first came together under a shared adoration of one iconic track.

It was back in 1968 that guitarist Jimmy Page first got the band together. After working as one of Britain’s most sought-after session guitarists throughout the 1960s, the songwriter had a stint with The Yardbirds, the legendary blues-rock outfit that had previously launched the careers of both Eric Clapton and Jeff Beck. However, The Yardbirds had disintegrated by the time mid-1968 rolled around, leaving Page in search of a new outfit, working under the inventive original name The New Yardbirds.

Robert Plant was the first member to officially join the ranks of this new outfit, although Page had originally sought Terry ‘Superlungs’ Reid as their vocalist. On Plant’s recommendation, drummer John Bonham was the next to be added, and bassist John Paul Jones made up the last piece of the puzzle. All of a sudden, Led Zeppelin were here, and they were about to change the world of rock and roll forever.

Before all of the world tours, extensive studio sessions, and expensive hotel rooms could be set in motion, however, these four relative strangers had to figure out their dynamic. Page had crossed paths with John Paul Jones a few times on the session musician circuit back in the mid-1960s, and Plant had met Bonham prior, but none of the members could be described as close friends before they started the band. So, like all new relationships, the group had to test the waters to see if there was any chemistry.

As John Paul Jones told journalist Steve Rosen in 1977, Page chose one tune in particular to test that chemistry. “The first time we all met in this little room just to see if we could even stand each other. Jimmy said, ‘Do you know a number called ‘The Train Kept A-Rollin?’” That song was first recorded by the jazz pioneer Tiny Bradshaw in 1951, but it soon found favour within the blossoming world of rock and roll.

The Yardbirds had incorporated a trailblazing psych-rock version of the tune into their repertoire under the leadership of Jeff Beck, and it was a particular favourite of Page’s when he joined the ranks of the group. As it turned out, the song brought Led Zeppelin together, too. “[Page] counted it out, and the room just exploded, and we said, ‘Right, we’re on. This is it. This is going to work.’ And we just sort of built it up from there,” Jones recalled. “And now I wouldn’t be without Zeppelin for the world.”

Elsewhere, Jimmy Page remembered the moment as being just as earthshattering. “It was there immediately. It was so powerful that I don’t remember what we played after that,” he remembered. That song became the first step in crafting the Led Zeppelin that changed the landscape of rock forever; it featured on many of their early tours, and its subsequent appearance on bootleg records is often cited as a major milestone in the development of heavy metal music.

Led Zeppelin moved on from the sounds of ‘Train Kept A-Rollin’’ fairly quickly, carving out their own distinctive sound. Without the anachronistic sounds of that iconic jazz record, however, the world might never have known the infectiously abrasive sounds of the hard rock progenitors.