The Led Zeppelin Guitar Riff That John Paul Jones Wrote on a Train

Led Zeppelin has countless incredible guitar riffs in their music. Whether it’s the opening of “Whole Lotta Love” or “When the Levee Breaks,” audiences are still amazed by Jimmy Page’s work with the band. However, Page’s work would be incomplete without bass player John Paul Jones, who wrote one of Led Zeppelin’s most iconic guitar riffs while riding the train. 

John Paul Jones wrote the guitar riff for Led Zeppelin’s ‘Black Dog’ while on a train

“Black Dog” has an infectious guitar riff playing during the hook, making the track a fan-favorite. It’s one of the best-performing Led Zeppelin songs on the charts, reaching No. 15 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100. While it’s easy to give Page all the credit for the guitar performance, some of the credit has to go to Jones. In an interview with Bass Player (shared via Guitar World), Jones said he wrote the riff while riding a train back from a Led Zeppelin rehearsal. 

“I wrote Black Dog on a train,” Jones said. “My Dad taught me how to write musical notation without using manuscript paper – just with numbers and note values – and I wrote that riff on the back of a train ticket coming back from a rehearsal at Jimmy Page’s house.”

While this guitar riff was undoubtedly fun for Page to play, Jones still got in on the action. He often doubled guitar riffs on the bass, as he knew his role as the bass player was to support the guitar, even if it was hard for people to hear him. 

“I think you have to make a decision to support the guitar,” Jones shared. “Sometimes you can be really sparse and that will really highlight what the guitar’s doing. Or you can do a repeated pattern and build up intensity. In Black Dog, I would leave a lot of space, and Page could come out in those spaces. You’ve got to look at the whole picture.”

A song by Muddy Waters inspired Jones to write the riff

“Black Dog” is a song with much influence from other artists. The song has a call-and-response aspect, which Page credits as being taken from “Oh Well” by Fleetwood Mac. However, John Paul Jones had a different inspiration while writing the Led Zeppelin track. The bass player said he was inspired by a song by Muddy Waters, another legendary guitar player, in his own way. 

“There was a Muddy Waters song I was attracted to at the time,” Jones explained. “It was a rolling blues with a riff that never ended. I fancied writing something that did the same thing. Just when you think the riff is going to finish, it goes off somewhere else.”

While “Black Dog” features each member of Led Zeppelin at the height of their instrumental powers, it was a difficult song for the band to record. Jones said it was initially in a much faster tempo, but nobody could keep up. He worked with drummer John Bonham to make sure he reached a tempo he could play and matched the song. 

“I told Bonzo he had to keep playing four-to-the-bar all the way through,” he said. “If you go through enough 5/8s, it arrives back on the beat.”