“Gallow's Pole” by Led Zeppelin

"Gallow's Pole" is the folk song Led Zeppelin pulled out of the tradition and set alight on Led Zeppelin III, released on 5 October 1970. The tune is traditional English, reaching them by way of the American singer Fred Gerlach, and Jimmy Page and Robert Plant take the arrangement credit; along with the album's other acoustic-based songs, it showed the band could pull off a whole different style.

The album was cut largely at Headley Grange, a country house, using the Rolling Stones Mobile Studio, plus sessions at Island and Olympic in London, and as before there were no outside players: just Plant singing, Page on guitars, John Paul Jones on bass and keyboards and John Bonham on drums. Page produced, Peter Grant was executive producer, and Andy Johns and Terry Manning engineered. Critics were puzzled by the record's acoustic turn at first; it has long since been heard as a turning point.

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