Alex Lifeson names his favourite Led Zeppelin songs
It’s no secret that Rush guitarist Alex Lifeson is a lifelong lover of Led Zeppelin. The British band had such a tremendous impact on the Canadian trio that hearing them for the first time was the most consequential experience of their early careers.
During a past interview, Rush frontman Geddy Lee noted how greatly Led Zeppelin inspired his band. He recalled: “They were a huge, huge influence on us. We wanted to be them instantly. But their stuff was hard to play. We tried a number of Zeppelin songs when we played in the bars, but we felt we couldn’t pull them off. We did have ‘Livin’ Lovin’ Maid’ in our set for a while, though.”
Alex Lifeson has been equally as effusive about the ‘Communication Breakdown’ band in his time and has even registered two particular songs as his favourites. The first is ‘How Many More Times’ from Zeppelin’s 1969 self-titled debut. When listing the ten songs that were the most influential for him on Sirius XM’s Classic Vinyl Influences in 2013, Lifeson said this particular number had the “biggest impact”.
He explained: “Led Zeppelin were an enormous influence, and Jimmy Page particularly, for me, was probably the biggest influence on me as a budding guitarist. When that first record came out in early in think 1969 or was in the fall of ’68 in Canada, I remember going down to the record shop and standing in line, waiting to get a copy, because it was only available on import. I immediately went over to get it, and we sat down and listened to it a million times over.”
Lifeson continued: “‘How Many More Times’ was the one song that I think had the biggest impact on me. It was such a cool heavy song and then Jimmy Page played the first half of the guitar solo with a violin bow. That just absolutely blew my mind. Of course, I ran out and bought a violin bow and tried to emulate him. All that happened really was I got all this sticky raw over my strings. I had to take my guitar strings and actually boil them to get that stuff off. I couldn’t afford new strings (laughs)”.
Elsewhere, when speaking to Guitar World alongside Geddy Lee to name 22 songs that shaped Rush’s sound, the pair listed ‘Kashmir’ from 1975’s Physical Graffiti. They revealed that the track influenced Rush song ‘A Passage to Bangkok’: “This is an absolutely brilliant song, an all-time classic. ‘Kashmir’ has such a wonderful, exotic Middle Eastern feel to it – it’s like no other song of its era – and Physical Graffiti is a mind-blowing album.”
They continued: “In a roundabout way, ‘Kashmir’ influenced ‘A Passage to Bangkok’, which has a similar sort of odd-tempo arrangement to the verses.”
Elsewhere in the chat, Lifeson recalled the first moment he met Jimmy Page. Unsurprisingly, it was a fanboy moment: “I met Page at a Page/Plant concert in Toronto in 1998. I was acting like a kid, all googly-eyed. I was freaking out, and my hands were shaking. I was so thrilled to meet him because his work meant so much to me.”
Alex Lifeson’s two favourite Led Zeppelin songs:
- ‘How Many More Times’ – Led Zeppelin (1969)
- ‘Kashmir’ – Physical Graffiti (1975)
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