Led Zeppelin, "Bring it on Home"

9 Days to Find a Home



Led Zeppelin II was famously trashed by critics when it arrived (check out the Rolling Stone review, which looks hilariously close to something one would read on Vice or Pitchfork in 2015) in 1969. Listening to "Bring it on Home" I can tell why. Led Zeppelin is so ingrained in the roots of American music that today one could argue that they're artistically closer to John Lee Hooker than Metallica. But in the '60s, it must've sounded like Blueshammer to purists.

It took major cajones, or lack of self-consciousness, for a group of white, hard-rockin' British 20somethings to adapt Sonny Boy Williamson song (and a phrase that had already been a hit in both Sam Cooke and Bo Diddley's repertoires) into their own headbanging original, without even crediting songwriter Willie Dixon. To be fair, the Page riff sonically overwhelms Dixon's, to the point where Zeppelin owns the song at least as much as the Beach Boys own "Surfin' U.S.A." And judging from the amount of bands that have covered "Bring it on Home" since Led Zeppelin, I'd argue, to paraphrase Bob Dylan on Dylan Thomas, that Zeppelin did more for Sonny Boy Williamson than Williamson did for Zeppelin.

Billy Squier, "The Stroke"

There have been more annoying hard rock singles than "The Stroke," but it's hard to think of any.



Plenty of hit songs have equally awful lyrics (Billy says "The Stroke" is about the music business, but nobody believes him) or that generic snare backbeat. But what relegates "The Stroke" even lower than the worst of W.A.S.P. or Jackyl is that once you hear "The Stroke," it stays in your head for usually at least four hours. Loathsome as it may be, anyone with a working pair of ears can tell why "The Stroke" was a hit.

Yet over 30 years later, "The Stroke" has found its purpose, thanks to Rick Rubin and Marshall Mathers.



I don't know who decided to sample "The Stroke" for Eminem's new single, "Bezerk," but it was an absolutely brilliant choice. That infectious riff finally gets the song it deserves, worked in with a few Beastie Boys samples and Slim Shady's best hook in ages. Still, the real winner is Squier, whose song becomes relatively tolerable by assosiation. To paraphrase Bob Dylan on Dylan Thomas, Eminem did more for Billy Squier than Billy Squier ever did for Eminem.