“That's The Way” by Led Zeppelin

"That's the Way" is the quiet heart of Led Zeppelin III, the 1970 album where the band turned down the amps and went looking for the hills. Jimmy Page and Robert Plant worked it up that year while holed up at Bron-Yr-Aur cottage in Wales, cutting a rough demo after a long walk, and it went by "The Boy Next Door" before it got its real name.

Plant's words tell of a boy whose parents won't let him keep company with another boy, the one with long hair from the wrong side of town, and they carry the sting of the band's own early American tours, when they were hassled for how they looked. The setting is spare: strummed twelve-string, mandolin and steel guitar laid over the top, no bass or percussion until the outro, where Page, producing, adds dulcimer and bass as it all finally opens up.

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