It would probably be fair to say that live performing was the thing that propelled Led Zeppelin.

Jimmy Page and Robert Plant said so themselves the first time the band spoke with Rolling Stone in 1975.

“I love playing. If it was down to just that, it would be utopia,” Page said. “But it’s not. It’s airplanes, hotel rooms, limousines and armed guards standing outside rooms. I don’t get off on that part of it all. But it’s the price I’m willing to pay to get out and play.”

Plant was a bit more comfortable at home, but still felt a calling to performance.

“I miss this band when we aren’t playing,” he added. “I have to call Jimmy up or something to appease that restlessness. The other night when we played for the first time again I found the biggest smile on my mouth.”

Though Led Zeppelin was only together for a little over a decade, they did quite a bit of performing in that period. Using data from setlist.fm, we’ve sorted through the most and least-played songs live from nearly all of the band’s studio albums with the exception of Coda, which was released two years after Zeppelin broke up and is made up of mainly rejected recordings from years previous. There are, of course, some songs that were never played live at all, which we’ll leave out for the purposes of this list.

We should also note that the aforementioned data pertains only to performances billed as Led Zeppelin. In other words: Page and Plant’s tours in the ’90s do not count as the third surviving member of Zeppelin, John Paul Jones, did not participate.

So settle in. It’s time to ramble on…

Album: Led Zeppelin (1969)
Most-played: “Dazed and Confused”
Least-played: “Your Time Is Gonna Come”

The studio version of “Dazed and Confused” from Led Zeppelin’s debut album clocks in at approximately six and a half minutes long, but when performing it live they would often stretch out the instrumental sections such that the song became much longer. By the time Zeppelin started playing the song, Page was a professional having already played it live numerous times with the Yardbirds. It is, at 382 plays, the single most-performed song live by Led Zeppelin. On the other side of the coin is “Your Time Is Gonna Come,” which squeaked in exactly one performance in December of 1968 in Seattle.

 

Album: Led Zeppelin II (1969)
Most-played: “Whole Lotta Love”
Least-played: “Ramble On”

On Led Zeppelin II, “Heartbreaker” ends in such a way that it transitions into “Living Loving Maid (She’s Just a Woman)” like a finger snap. Yet, Page reportedly hated the latter song so much that even though “Heartbreaker” got played 261 times, “Living Loving Maid” never got played ever. That leaves “Ramble On” as the next least-played with just one performance at the 2007 Ahmet Ertegun tribute concert where Zeppelin reunited for one night. “Whole Lotta Love,” on the other hand, earned 295 plays over the years.

 

Album: Led Zeppelin III (1970)
Most-played: “Since I’ve Been Loving You”
Least-played: “Friends”

In the below video, you can see Jones playing an organ, using its bass pedals instead of playing a traditional bass guitar, which is what he did for the studio version of “Since I’ve Been Loving You” as well. In live performances, this song could be downright lethal with Plant’s wailing vocal. Two songs from Led Zeppelin III never got played live, “Out on the Tiles” and “Hats Off to (Roy) Harper,” while “Friends” got one play in Japan in 1971. Plant, however, has often played it on his own solo tours in the last 20 or so years.

 

Album: Led Zeppelin IV (1971)
Most-played: “Stairway to Heaven”
Least-played: “Four Sticks”

Both of this writer’s parents, who were in high school in the ’70s, have said that if they never heard “Stairway to Heaven” ever again in their lives, that would be just fine. However you feel about this persistent song, the numbers don’t lie: it’s the most-played song from Led Zeppelin IV and the fifth most-played song across the band’s entire catalog. As it happens, every song from Led Zeppelin IV has been played live at one point or another, but “Four Sticks” got only two performances, literally one day apart from one another on May 3 and 4, 1971. Shoutout to the person who managed to record one of those shows.

 

Album: Houses of the Holy (1973)
Most-played: “The Song Remains the Same”
Least-played: “The Crunge”

Weirdly enough, “D’yer Mak’er,” one of the few songs on which all four members of Led Zeppelin share a writing credit, never got played live. Fortunately, a couple of other songs from Houses of the Holy with four co-writing credits did make set lists, including “The Crunge” which got played 12 times, all in 1975. At the top of the list with 172 plays is “The Song Remains the Same,” a track that was originally going to be instrumental until Plant got to work on it.

 

Album: Physical Graffiti (1975)
Most-played: “Kashmir”
Least-played: “Custard Pie”

A number of songs from Physical Graffiti were never performed live — including “Houses of the Holy,” the title track to the band’s previous album that wound up not fitting with the material. “Custard Pie” got two plays, once in 1975 and once in 1990 at the wedding reception of drummer John Bonham‘s son, Jason Bonham. Talk about a great wedding band. At the top of the list, “Kashmir” got in just over 100 plays, an epic of a number that was written over a period of several years — it was worth the wait.

 

Album: Presence (1976)
Most-played: “Achilles Last Stand”
Least-played: “For Your Life”

The pickings get slimmer as you move toward the back end of Led Zeppelin’s career — only two out of the seven songs on 1976’s Presence got played live. “Achilles Last Stand” easily takes the cake with 57 plays over the course of about three years. And then there’s “For Your Life,” which the band resurrected for that 2007 reunion show.

 

Album: In Through the Out Door (1979)
Most-played: Tie Between “Hot Dog” and “In the Evening”
Least-played: “All My Love”

Say whatever you’d like, this writer happens to think “Hot Dog” is nothing to be laughed off. Sure, it has a funny title, and yes, it’s unlike most other Zeppelin songs, but it’s awfully fun to sing and clap along to — just look at the smile on Page’s face in the below clip. “Hot Dog” and “In the Evening” both got 17 plays during 1979 and 1980, including at the 1979 Knebworth Festival. Meanwhile, “All My Love” followed close behind with 13 plays and the rest of In Through the Out Door stayed in the studio.