#20 Bring It On Home

For those who don’t like the Blues, you might want to fast forward this song to the 1 minute 45 second mark! “Bring It On Home” off of the almighty Led Zeppelin II is both a tribute and a head banger. Originally written by legendary blues musician, Willie Dixon, and initially recorded by Sonny Boy Williamson in 1963, the Zep version kicks off with a simple blues guitar riff played by Jimmy Page, while Robert Plant stuffs his face into a harmonica to imitate the muffled, original sound.

Considering the restrictions many artists have in 2018 with regard to the length of their music, it’s incredible to think that “Bring It On Home” doesn’t get past the intro until 1:45. At 4 minutes and 20 seconds long, this would actually be considered on the short side of Zeppelin’s average song length. However, the lengthy intro serves as a homage to the blues music that the English musicians grew up loving.

And in typical fashion, the sound that follows this relatively docile intro will melt your face off. As the story goes, Led Zeppelin’s intent with the track was to create a deliberate tribute to the original recording (during the intro) and then infuse their own unique sound into the mid section to somewhat display both their inspiration and their interpretation. The problem: song writing credits were not given to Willie Dixon.

Ultimately, a lawsuit was settled out of court by the band to properly pay their hero as a “partial writer” and subsequent releases of the song were broken up into separate parts. The intro being credited to Dixon and the midsection being retitled to “Bring It On Back” with writing credits given to the four members of Zeppelin.

“Bring It On Home” is the final act on an album that would ultimately inspire for years to come. Ranked #75 on Rolling Stone magazine’s list of the top 500 greatest albums of all time, the album has been described by critics as the “blueprint” of hard rock. It was the band’s first album to reach number 1 in the US, knocking off the Beatles’ Abbey Road from the top spot in 1970.