Led Zeppelin "Babe I'm Gonna Leave You"

I had a friend who went to an open mic-night at a local bar where two guys went on stage, one with an acoustic guitar, one to sing, and they attempted to play Led Zeppelin's "Babe I'm Gonna Leave You." According to my friend it was a dismal embarrassment. As he cringed and shuddered while watching the guitarist fumble and fingerpick his way through Jimmy Page's fluid melody and the singer strain his chords and fail to hit Robert Plant's high notes, he wondered how anyone in their right mind could choose this particular song for an open-mic night. What better way to showcase your amateurism than to completely butcher one of the best and most challenging Led Zeppelin songs?

They would have been better off rocking an unplugged version of the opening theme to Star Wars.

"Babe I'm Gonna Leave You" is a song that encapsulates all the essential features of what made Zeppelin great. An intricate but graceful guitar melody that you can sing out loud, thundering drums, howling lyrics of shattered romance and a solidifying baseline that's so powerful you hardly even notice.

The song starts out slow and methodical with a bit of a sad acoustic guitar finger-picking in A-minor. By the end of the first verse the band has exploded to life but for only a brief moment, before settled back to the rhythmic strumming. Then it explodes again and drops back down to Earth only to hit you full force with that powerful, unattainable Zeppelin sound.

"Babe I'm Gonna Leave You" is one of those Zeppelin songs that sounds best when heard through headphones, or while sitting in the middle of two gigantic speakers while the original vinyl LP from 1969 blasts on your turntable. My father owns the original album and seems to just now - 40 years later- begin taking an interest in what made Led Zeppelin so unique. We sat down and listened to "Babe I'm Gonna Leave You" on vinyl together - and really listened to it. He was impressed by how tight the band sounded, with the lead singers "incredible vocal range" and the contrast between heavy and light. By the end of the song he was starting to get it, to understand how Led Zeppelin was different than the rest. Why the album Led Zeppelin I is on a different level than many of the other LPs in his ancient collection.

Speckled with guitar fills that sound like they came from the flamenco halls of Seville and Plant's youthful range at its best the musicianship of Led Zeppelin's "Babe I'm Gonna Leave You" exceeds even many of Zeppelin's own signature tracks and ranks as one of their finest. A "Classic" on the Led Zeppelin "Classic-Meter."