The curious Led Zeppelin song John Paul Jones never wants to hear again: “Buttock-clenchingly embarrassing”
(Credits: Far Out / Alamy)
Sat 3 January 2026 19:45, UK
The beauty of Led Zeppelin lies in the fact that they bloody went for it. They went for it with all the unguarded vigour of King Arthur pulling the sword out of the stone.
They didn’t do half measures: if they were going to wear tight pants then you may as well be able to see the change in their pocket, if they were going to solo then it may as well be of a length measurable by a roman calendar, if Robert Plant was going to hit a high note then it may as well be one that threatens to take Sputnik out of orbit. What more can you say? They just bloody went for it.
This was the ethos of the band, and it launched them to a pretty much unrivalled precipice. But it was also a daring attitude. And while it underpinned their great triumphs, it was also the factor that set them up for a few rare regrets, too.
While it might be hard to imagine bemoaning much in their esteemed back catalogue, John Paul Jones, ever-humble, ever-modest and ever brutally honest, still reckons there are a few moments where they slipped below par. In fact, there is one ‘mishap’ that he would like to seal in a vault forever.
As he told Guitar World once upon a time, “I’d put ‘D’yer Mak’er’ in a time capsule so I would never have to hear it again or have to explain how to pronounce the title.” That’s not his only grievance with the track, but it is a good starting point. You see, it initially began as a mere joke.
As the old gag goes:
“I’ve just taken my wife on holiday to the Caribbean.”
“Jamaica?”
“No, she was happy to come.”
It’s a set-up to a song (or studio jam), a world away from the usual occult overtones that influence the lyricism of Led Zeppelin. And it is a joke that even permeates into the song structure and stylings itself, with reggae and dub derivative sounds representing a departure from the norm for the heavy rockers.
That’s not a genre that John Paul Jones thinks the band should have ever gone anywhere near, beyond a daft studio warm-up, but they were bold enough to dare to do so. In which case, sometimes you eat the bear, and sometimes the bear eats you. Embarrassingly, the bassist thinks, on this occasion, they were devoured.
“There were only two types of rhythms that Bonzo [John Bonham] hated playing,” Jones recalled, “shuffles and reggae.”
He was about to head out of his comfort zone and mix both for a joke that matured into what some would call a masterpiece, and Jones would call a mockery. “We were jamming in the latter style at Stargroves, the house we rented from Mick Jagger, and John was going along with it out of politeness, I think,” Jones recalled.
“Unfortunately, the jam turning in to a proper song. He did play some marvelous fills, but for me, the whole thing was buttock-clenchingly embarrassing,” he concluded. It would likely get them laughed off the stage in Kingston, so there’s little surprise that Jones wishes it had never left the studio, but in many ways, it is also an utterly unique jam that typifies the boldness that embodied their finest facet.
And it says an awful lot that many fans would still hail it as a cracking little ditty.
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