The only Led Zeppelin songs that feature John Bonham on vocals
Everyone has their own specialities, particularly within the musical realm. You wouldn’t, for instance, ask Fatboy Slim to DJ at your nan’s wake, or hire Black Flag to soundtrack an arthouse period drama. By that same metric, you probably wouldn’t ever think of asking one of the greatest drummers in the history of rock, John Bonham, to put down his sticks and start singing.
Particularly, as in the case of Led Zeppelin, when Robert Plant was on call to deliver some of the most iconic rock vocal performances of all time. In fact, if you look at every member of Led Zeppelin in isolation, they were each incredibly specialised in their own area of the group, with John Paul Jones on bass and Jimmy Page on guitar. Their success – though colossal, widespread, and unparalleled back in the 1970s – was not all that surprising when you look at the sheer concentration of talent within their line-up.
Within that, John Bonham played an utterly essential role in carving out the trailblazing hard rock sound of the group, so much so that his tragically premature death back in 1980 spelt the end of the band entirely, unable to carry on with the loss of his prolific drumming skills. His sonic contributions to Zeppelin have given every subsequent rock drummer something to aim for, though very few have managed to reach the same upper echelon in which he resided during the peak of the hard rock explosion.
If you were to walk into any real ale pub, find a group of blokes in stretched-out band t-shirts, and mention John Bonham’s name, you could easily wile away an afternoon reminiscing and debating over what his greatest moments with Led Zeppelin were (although ‘Fool In The Rain’ is clearly the correct answer).
However, mention the drummer’s vocal contributions to the band and you will either be met with blank stares or mocking classic-rock laughter. After all, in the course of Zeppelin’s discography, the band only saw fit to equip Bonzo with a vocal mic on a handful of occasions.
Invariably, those occasions were limited to band-wide harmonies, as on ‘Your Time Is Gonna Come’ or ‘Bron-Y-Aur Stomp’ – particularly the live versions of the latter – or the odd ad-lib here and there. Even on tracks like ‘Good Times Bad Times’, in which all band members are credited with backing vocals, Bonham cannot actually be heard from behind his drum kit. In fact, Bonham’s only truly notable vocal contribution to the band is limited to the count-in on 1973’s ‘The Ocean’.
While that often mixed-down introduction doesn’t amount to much, in the grand scheme of things, Bonham was never really meant to be a vocalist. After all, he devoted much of his life to the mastery of percussion – if he had, instead, tried to split his time between the rhythm section and being a lead singer, he might never have achieved the same distinctive sound or percussive mastery.
What’s more, even if he did have an angelic voice akin to a prime Otis Redding, nobody else could have filled the role of being Led Zeppelin’s vocalist in the same way as Robert Plant, who didn’t have to worry about playing incredibly complex drum patterns at the same time as belting out a chorus. So, it certainly makes sense that Bonzo’s vocal contributions were kept to a minimum.
The Led Zeppelin songs with John Bonham on vocals:
- The Ocean
- Bron-Y-Aur Stomp
- Your Time Is Gonna Come
Never Miss A Beat
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