Led Zeppelin’s Most Heartfelt Ballads Ranked

2025-09-09

Led Zeppelin III album cover.

Led Zeppelin is a band that’s definitely known for their hard rock songs, but we’re ranking their most popular ballads. – Author: Cat Badra, Album cover from Atlantic Catalog Group

Led Zeppelin is a band certainly known for their hard rock songs, and they’re pretty much considered the originators in the hard rock and even metal genre, along side Black Sabbath for the latter. But, Led Zeppelin also create fantastic ballads, and some of their biggest hits, actually, are ballads.

Led Zeppelin’s story starts on September 7, 1968, when the band performed their first live show in a converted gym in Gladsaxe, Denmark. It’s very unexpected that a band such as Zeppelin would debut in what once was a gym, but that was how they got their start.

“They weren’t yet billed under their soon-to-be world-famous name but were instead performing under the guise of the New Yardbirds, a relaunch of the British Invasion blues rockers who’d imploded just months before,” Rolling Stone notes in a 2018 feature. “The only known quantity among this new lineup was guitarist Jimmy Page, who’d funded the tour through Scandinavia out of his own pocket, but that was enough draw a young crowd to the venue, known as Teen Club.”

Rolling Stone adds that a local review, Bent Larsen, stated in the venue’s monthly newsletter that Led Zeppelin’s performance and music were “flawless” and that the music even rang in people’s ears “after the curtains were drawn after their show.” So, the band had talent early on.

Zeppelin famously featured Robert Plant on vocals, Jimmy Page on guitar, John Paul Jones on bass and the late John Bonham on drums. “Although their musical style was diverse, they came to be well known especially for their influence on the development of heavy metal,” notes Britannica about the band.

Britannica adds that even though “acoustic and folk-based music was part of the band’s repertoire from its inception, it was the bottom-heavy, loud, raw, and powerful electric style that gained them their following and notoriety early on; their first two albums included many of the songs that prompted Led Zeppelin’s categorization as a precursor of heavy metal.”

The Best Led Zeppelin Ballads

3. “Since I’ve Been Loving You”

“Since I’ve Been Loving You” arrived on Zeppelin’s 1970 album “Led Zeppelin III,” and it became an instant favorite. It’s a powerful song, and Page’s guitar playing is simply mesmerizing. According to Songfacts, the song “was recorded live in the studio with very little overdubbing. If you listen carefully, you can hear the squeak of John Bonham’s drum pedal.”

2. “The Rain Song”

“The Rain Song” has incredible lyrics from Plant, and it’s really like a piece of poetry. The song was released in 1973 as the second track on their fifth studio album, “Houses of the Holy.” It’s a more than seven-minute ballad, so it’s a meaty song. According to Songfacts, Plant “uses the seasons as a metaphor, starting with the springtime of his love and ending with the coldness of winter.”

1. “Stairway to Heaven”

Was there any doubt that “Stairway to Heaven” would be our pick for the best Led Zeppelin ballad of all time? This is a monster of a song and Zeppelin’s most popular and mainstream to date. The song was released in November 1971 on the band’s untitled fourth studio album, and the rest of music history. The song had a big boost in February 2025, when it reappeared on the Hard Rock Digital Song Sales list at No. 8, according to Forbes. The outlet adds that “Stairway to Heaven” had “previously climbed all the way to No. 4 in the 332 frames it has spent on the Hard Rock Digital Song Sales roster.”

It’s fantastic that decades after these ballads came out, they’re still so popular and carry that emotional appeal. Also find Audio Ink Radio’s tally of the most underrated Led Zeppelin songs of all time. Reach out cat@audioinkradio.com with your favorites.

Cat Badra
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Posted by Cat Badra | Features, Music

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