🎸 My Personal Best 25 (Led Zeppelin Edition) — No.10: “Custard Pie” — A Distorted Groove of Raw Instinct

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🎸【Led Zeppelin Series】No.10 is…

No.10 is “Custard Pie.”

At last, the door to the Top 10 swings open. The first song I chose for this realm is one overflowing with raw wildness that sweeps logic aside. From here begins the experience of touching the roughest yet most refined “rock face” of the massive mountain range known as ZEP.

An opening so heavy yet nimble that it makes you want to shout, “This is Zeppelin!”

An opening so heavy yet nimble that it makes you want to shout, “This is Zeppelin!” Jimmy Page’s guitar and John Paul Jones’s clavinet—an electronic keyboard played percussively by striking its internal strings—intertwine here. Experience the one-of-a-kind, grounded elasticity created by these two.

【Ultra-Brief: A Metaphor of Desire】

Following old blues traditions, this story portrays a craving for forbidden fruit through the metaphor of sweet food. What emerges is not lofty philosophy, but an irresistible life impulse—and a tough spirit that transforms it into humor. The structure of primal temptation surfaces, as if overflowing energy itself were sealed directly into sound.

🎥As always, start by watching the official YouTube video.

🎬 Official Video Credits (Official Audio)
Song: Custard Pie
Artist: Led Zeppelin
Album: Physical Graffiti (1975)
Written by: Jimmy Page / Robert Plant
Audio Source: Remastered official audio
Two-Line Commentary
A thick, blues-based riff and Robert Plant’s provocative vocals define this album opener. A perfect curtain-raiser for “Physical Graffiti,” condensing Led Zeppelin’s raw energy into a single track.

1975: The Opening Shot of a “Massive Experimental Field” Called a Double Album

The Aesthetics of Subtraction Born from a Champion’s Composure

“Physical Graffiti,” which includes this song, was the band’s first ambitious double album. Throughout the previous 15 entries, I’ve repeatedly touched on their sense of architectural beauty—but their stance in “Custard Pie” is slightly different.

Already at the pinnacle of the rock world, they stripped away excess here, simultaneously “returning to” and “destroying” their blues roots. The fact that they chose this as the opening track conveys overwhelming confidence—or even an arrogant certainty: “Whatever we play, no matter how muddy, becomes the newest rock.”

Connecting the Past’s Legacy to the Heat of the Present

This is not mere nostalgia. In the mid-1970s, amid the rise of progressive rock and flamboyant spectacle, they deliberately chose a raw sound where you could almost see the grime on their fingertips. This refusal to flatter the era is one of the main reasons I placed this song in the Top 10.

Intertwined “Sound Serpents”: The Conspiracy of Clavinet and Guitar

Sensual Pleasure Without Technical Jargon

The first thing that seizes your ears is the density of sound attacking from both channels. In hard rock, a single guitar is usually enough—but here, John Paul Jones’s clavinet slips into the guitar’s gaps like a percussion instrument.

To me, these two instruments resemble two snakes competing for prey. When one pulls back, the other advances. This exquisite lack of interference unconsciously sets the listener’s body in motion.

Not a Heavy Tank, but a Supple Leap

I once described John Bonham’s drums as a “heavy tank.” But here, his beat is heavy yet strangely buoyant—less about pounding the ground than springing back from it.

Despite the lyric “Drop down,” the sound itself always feels as if it’s rising upward, creating an uncanny sense of suspension. This imbalance is what keeps me endlessly engaged.

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Unresolved Desire Thrown Forth by Bare Words

A Naked Loop Without Resolution

What strikes you when you look at the lyrics is the absence of a clear ending. These patchworked blues phrases vow no love and confess no deep regret.

There is only the relentless invitation of “Drop down, baby” and an unfulfilled craving. While many rock songs release emotion toward a chorus and arrive at some landing point, this one never resolves. This state—where emotion is never collected, only energy endlessly circulating—is what makes the song feel profound to me.

Why the Distortion of 1975 Still Sounds So Raw Today

Robert Plant’s voice here feels less like a sweet whisper and more like a rough physical substance.

The metaphor of “Custard Pie” may sound playful at first, but the sheer weight and aggression of the performance makes the listener sense a serious, obsessive intensity beneath the humor.

This warped gap between the lightness of words and the heaviness of sound—this, to me, is the pinnacle of the mature, slightly decadent blues that Led Zeppelin ultimately reached.

The Moment the Needle Dropped in 1975, My Room Warped

A Perfect Memory as an Introduction

When I first heard this song as the opening track of “Physical Graffiti,” what stunned me was the sheer closeness of the sound. The instant it came through the speakers, the air in the room changed—I felt as if the heat of Jimmy Page’s amp brushed my neck.

It was different from the polished beauty of the masterpieces ranked 11 through 25. Rougher, more incomplete, yet irresistibly alive. For me, this song wasn’t just music—it was a device that validated the unorganized emotions inside me.

Luxurious Noise to Stop Thinking

There are moments in daily life when nameless anxiety or unexplained irritation strikes. In those moments, I always turn this song up.

Rather than “understanding” a meticulously constructed piece, I surrender to the relentless riff of “Custard Pie” and forcibly shut down my thoughts. In doing so, something core within me sharpens. For me, this song has also been the most luxurious antidote.

The Boundary of No.10: Why This Song Guards the Sacred Gate

Where Orthodoxy and Heresy Collide

Why is this song ranked No.10?

Because it sits exactly where Led Zeppelin’s “light” and “shadow”—their sense of form and raw instinct—collide most violently.

Above this (Nos.1–9) await universally acknowledged monuments that reshaped rock history. But before entering that realm, we must pass through the muddy filter of “Custard Pie.” That is the gatekeeper role I feel this song plays.

What This Order of Introduction Signifies

Climbing step by step from No.25, we’ve savored their diversity and technical peaks up to No.11. Placing this song as the opening of the Top 10 is a deliberate choice.

It declares: “From here on, we extract only the purest essence—no explanations required.”

Bathed in the wordless intensity of “Custard Pie,” our ears are now ready to ascend to even greater heights left behind by ZEP.

After the song ends, what lingers is not a refined melody, but the sensation of that distorted guitar riff charging forward, kicking up mud. Holding onto that feeling, let’s climb together toward No.9.