• Writers: Jimmy Page and Robert Plant
• Producer: Jimmy Page
• Recorded: 1969 at Juggy Sound Studio, New York City
• Released: October 22nd, 1969
• Players:
  Robert Plant — vocals
  Jimmy Page — guitar
  John Paul Jones — bass
  John Bonham — drums and plastic trash can
• Album: Led Zeppelin II (Atlantic, 1969)
• Also On:
  Led Zeppelin (Atlantic, 1990)
  Remasters (Atlantic, 1992)
  The Complete Studio Recordings (Atlantic, 1993)
• “Ramble On” was a good example of Led Zeppelin‘s ability to start a song in a gentle, acoustic fashion before blasting off into hard rock for the choruses.
• J.R.R. Tolkien, author of The Lord Of The Rings, inspired the lyrics of the song. Robert Plant later said he was embarrassed by the Tolkien references.
• “Ramble On” was part of Plant’s emergence as a songwriter on Led Zeppelin II. He would eventually share near-equal footing with guitarist Jimmy Page in songwriting.
• Led Zeppelin never performed the song in its entirety while the group was together. Plant and Page, however, performed it on their duo tours of 1995 and 1998.
• Led Zeppelin II was recorded in various locations in the United States and England while the group was touring in the summer of 1969. Bassist John Paul Jones remembered: “It was recorded every spare moment that we were on the road. We literally wrote the album on the road, and whenever there were a couple of hours between shows, we booked a studio and went in and recorded. It had great spontaneity and urgency.”
• Following the success of the first Led Zeppelin album, there were advance orders for more than half a million copies of Led Zeppelin II.
• The album debuted at Number 15 on the Billboard 200 and eventually rose to Number One at the end of 1969, and it stayed atop the chart for seven weeks after knocking off the Beatles‘ Abbey Road.
• In the U.K., Led Zeppelin II spent 138 weeks on the album chart, hitting Number One in February 1970.

FAST FORWARD:

• Following the death of drummer John Bonham in 1980, the surviving members of Led Zeppelin chose to break up the band rather than continue on without him.
• Page, Plant, and Jones have reunited for special occasions, such as Live Aid in 1985 and the Atlantic Records 40th anniversary concert in 1988.
• Plant and Page hooked up for an “unledded” tour, which paved the way for the albums No Quarter and Walking Into Clarksdale.
• The group was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1995.
• Page played a handful of shows with the Black Crowes in late 1999 that led to the album Jimmy Page & the Black Crowes: Live At The Greek.
• Jones has released two solo albums and toured in recent years. He has been working on a new studio album for some time.
• Page and his wife Jimena (pronounced hee-MEN-uh) are active in trying to help Brazilian street children. That work earned the guitarist the honor last year of being named an Officer Of The Order Of The British Empire (OBE) by Queen Elizabeth II.
• Last year, Plant released a new album called Mighty Rearranger.
• Led Zeppelin received the Recording Academy Lifetime Achievement Award at the 2005 Grammy Awards.

Plant recently scored a hit album with bluegrass artist Alison Krauss, called Rising Sand, which opened at Number Two on the Billboard album charts.