Deconstructing Led Zeppelin’s ‘Ramble On’ Track by Track: Guitars, Bass, Drums & Vocals

U I Team
Aug 20, 2019
3 min read

I'm seriously addicted to deconstructing well known songs, I've no idea why. I think it stems from playing around with the mixing levels at The Rolling Stones exhibition at the Saatchi Gallery

There’s something quite special about isolated tracks. They let us pick apart an old favourite and discover hidden details we probably missed the first hundred times round. Today, we’re doing just that with a classic slice of early Led Zeppelin — Ramble On.

This track came together thanks to the unstoppable ideas of Jimmy Page and Robert Plant, scribbled down and laid down while the band zigzagged across North America in the spring of 1969. They were only on their second tour of the States, yet somehow found pockets of time between gigs to pop into whichever studio was handy, adding bits and pieces to what would become Led Zeppelin II.

Jimmy Page's acoustic guitar:

As John Paul Jones later scribbled in the notes for their big box set, they were pretty much living out of a suitcase: “We were touring a lot. Jimmy’s riffs were coming fast and furious. A lot of them came from onstage, especially during the long improvised bit in Dazed and Confused. We’d remember what worked, then nip into a studio and stick it down.”

Ramble On is a neat early example of what Zeppelin did so well — building big contrasts in a single song. It drifts between soft acoustic bits and full-on electric blasts, and John Paul Jones’s bass keeps everything stitched together crisply.

John Paul Jones's bass guitar:

If you listen closely, you might notice the gentle, almost playful drumming during the quieter bits. Drummers have argued for years over how John Bonham pulled that off. Some swear he whacked a shoe sole with his sticks, others say it was a plastic bin lid. But according to Chris Welch and Geoff Nicholls in John Bonham: A Thunder of Drums, Bonzo just used his bare hands on an empty guitar case, simple but clever.

John Bonham's drums:

Lyrically, Ramble On is pure Plant. He was deep in his Tolkien phase, weaving bits of The Lord of the Rings straight into rock poetry:

“’Twas in the darkest depths of Mordor

I met a girl so fair.

But Gollum and the evil one crept up

And slipped away with her.”

He’d revisit Tolkien’s worlds again in Misty Mountain Hop and the legendary Stairway to Heaven.

Robert Plant's main vocals:

At around 1:14 in Ramble On, Jimmy Page’s guitar comes snarling in. There’s debate among gearheads over which guitar he used here — he’d just started favouring his famous Gibson Les Paul around this time, but the tone on Ramble On has that leaner sound more like his old Fender Telecaster from his Yardbirds days. Regardless, Page kept it clean and punchy, not piling on too many overdubs — a rare bit of restraint for a man who loved to layer.

Right around that same spot, you’ll catch Plant’s extra vocals weaving in. He later said that working on Led Zeppelin II was when he finally felt properly at home fronting the band. As he told Nigel Williamson in The Rough Guide to Led Zeppelin: “Led Zeppelin II was very virile. That was the album that was going to dictate whether or not we had the staying power and the capacity to stimulate.”

Jimmy Page's electric rhythm guitar:

When Led Zeppelin II hit the shelves in October 1969, it shot straight to number one in both Britain and America. Over the decades it’s shifted more than 12 million copies — not bad for a record mostly thrown together in borrowed studios between gigs.

And while Ramble On was never pushed as a single, Rolling Stone still slotted it into their list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time at number 444. Not that anyone in Zeppelin needed a magazine’s stamp of approval — the music says it all.

Jimmy Page's electric lead guitar:

Robert Plant's backup vocals: