Rick Rubin has singled out Led Zeppelin’s 1973 track ‘The Rain Song’ as a song he never tires of, saying it “defies classification”. The article presents the choice as reflecting Rubin’s long-standing admiration for music that moves between styles and emotional registers, an approach that also shaped his wide-ranging production career.

‘The Rain Song’ appears on Led Zeppelin’s fifth studio album, Houses of the Holy, and was written by Jimmy Page as a ballad with an unusual guitar tuning and layered chord voicings. Rubin praised its detailed guitar work, the arrival of the drums and its ability to feel sad, moody and strong simultaneously; he said he could listen to it all day.