Credit: Far Out / Alamy

The guitar solos Jimmy Page impressed himself with: “I was pushing myself”

Tue 2 June 2026 19:20, UK

There’s no real way of describing the impact that Jimmy Page had on a legion of guitar players.

Every single guitarist that seemed to come out of The Yardbirds in the late 1960s seemed to be destined for greatness, but while Eric Clapton started out loving the blues and Jeff Beck had his tendencies to veer into fusion territory, Page was bringing a sense of reckless abandon to every single record he made with Led Zeppelin. Some of the biggest parts of his career were about tearing down the foundations of traditional rock, but there were a handful of songs where he managed to surprise himself from time to time.

Every single member of the band was already the best in their field, but Page was the grand orchestrator behind everything they made. Nothing was going to get onto one of their records without him giving the okay, and when looking at their first few records, it’s not like he had the worst taste in the world. He was convinced that every song they made needed to have the right kind of punch, and that came from every single member of the band pushing themselves until a song was perfect.

John Bonham was already creating some of the greatest drum parts of all time, but while Robert Plant could wail to his heart’s content, Page’s guitar solos were always what tied the song together. ‘Stairway to Heaven’ is still one of the most epic songs of all time, but the reason why everything sounds so gargantuan is because of Page’s solo, which practically takes off and builds to the roaring climax at the end of the song.

But out of all the records that the band worked on, Houses of the Holy seemed to be a bit of an outlier in their catalogue. Every single member of the band was still operating at the peak of their powers, but they were also delving into strange territory as well. No one had heard tunes like ‘The Rain Song’ before, but compared to the traditional dance tunes everyone else was doing, ‘Dancing Days’ was the first time that Page worked with a solo that had more of a snarl to it.

He wasn’t using any kind of abnormal soloing techniques or anything, but that song and ‘Misty Mountain Hop’ were the two examples he could think of for his most aggressive moments, saying, “[‘Dancing Days’] is not the norm. It’s not a chug-along thing. It’s got intent in its attitude. It’s an attack. Although it’s not as extreme, that idea also appears on the solo to ‘Misty Mountain Hop’. I was pushing myself to explore new areas of harmony. I wanted to investigate those outside edges – maybe push myself over the edge!”

It wasn’t normal by any stretch, but the way that he attacked the strings is what gave him a lot more character compared to his peers. Clapton could be aggressive more than a few times with his instrument, but Page seemed like he was trying to squeeze every bit of life out of his guitar whenever he performed, which can be felt in every single guitarist who has been inspired by him ever since.

It’s easier to see his influence in someone like Slash from Guns N’ Roses or even Joe Perry from Aerosmith, but when you look at a guitarist like Alex Lifeson, Page was helping invent new genres that he didn’t even realise existed yet. Lifeson was at the forefront of prog rock when working with Rush, and if he could pull from Page and get a solo as chaotic and beautiful as ‘La Villa Strangiato’, he was clearly taking every lesson that Zeppelin taught him and applying it to something different.

What Page was doing was far from normal, but since when were any of his songs about pleasing what the critics wanted at the time? He wanted the chance to make some of the greatest rock and roll that he had ever heard, and that usually meant going above and beyond to get the best sounds for whatever the song needed.