No. 30: ‘Fool in the Rain’ – Top 50 Led Zeppelin Songs

Led Zeppelin haven't always been known for their linear storytelling. But 'Fool in the Rain,' which is No. 30 on our list of the Top 50 Led Zeppelin Songs, shows they could be quite adept at it when they wanted to be.

'Fool in the Rain' is essentially the tale of a guy waiting on a corner during a storm for his date, thinking that he's being stood up and feeling like, well, a fool. But in the last verse, he realizes that he's been on the wrong block the whole time, lightening his mood but making him no less foolish.

Not that this new lyrical direction for the band affected the music much. Like so many other of their classics, it's built upon a groove anchored by a punishing John Bonham shuffle, with Jimmy Page and John Paul Jones playing a riff on top of it. At times, Page's 12-string acoustic comes in with a counterpoint to Robert Plant's melody. And while there's no chorus, the song is broken up by an 80-second Latin break - a new direction for the band - followed by a Page electric solo reminiscent of hard bop jazz before the final verse, and its twist, brings the song to a close.

The result was one of Zeppelin's most commercially accessible songs. It became their fifth-highest charting single, reaching No. 21 on the Billboard Hot 100.