“Misty Mountain Hop” by Led Zeppelin

"Misty Mountain Hop" struts through Led Zeppelin's untitled fourth album, out on Atlantic in November 1971, and it also rode along as the flip side of "Black Dog". Jimmy Page produced it, Andy Johns engineered and mixed it, and the band tracked it at Headley Grange, a Hampshire mansion that sometimes doubled as their home. Page, Robert Plant and John Paul Jones share the writing credit.

It's a loping, stomping groove, and Plant fills it with a hippie's grievance: the lyrics look back on a 1968 pot rally in London's Hyde Park where police made arrests, then dream of a world where hang-ups give way to freedom and people looking out for one another. The title most likely nods to the Misty Mountains of Tolkien's The Hobbit. It was a regular in their 1972 and 1973 shows, and Rolling Stone later placed it at 10 among the band's 40 greatest songs.

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