“Black Dog” by Led Zeppelin

"Black Dog" opens Led Zeppelin's untitled fourth album from 1971, the record that went on to become one of the best-selling albums ever, and it doesn't so much start as lunge. Jimmy Page, John Paul Jones and Robert Plant wrote it, Page produced it with Andy Johns engineering and mixing, and Peter Grant was executive producer.

It's a riff that refuses to walk in a straight line: Page's guitar twisting and doubling back like it's trying to shake you off, Jones's bass locked to it, and John Bonham slamming away on drums, while Plant sings, and wails, and taunts, with backing vocals of his own. Lyrically it's pure bluesman territory, all lust, desire and betrayal, delivered with a strut.

It was released as a single and charted in plenty of countries, and it has kept its crown among guitar songs: Q magazine ranked it number one on its list of the 20 greatest guitar tracks, and it made Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Songs of All Time. It came out after "Immigrant Song" and was followed by "Rock and Roll".

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.