10 Cover Songs Much Better Than The Original

2. Led Zeppelin - "Babe I'm Gonna Leave You" (Joan Baez)

Zeppelin gets a lot of crap for stealing bits and pieces of other people's tunes and appropriating them into their own discography ("Dazed & Confused," "Whole Lotta Love," and "The Lemon Song" all reportedly plagiarized portions of lesser-known songs), but no one ever gives them credit for straight-up covering songs like bosses. "Babe I'm Gonna Leave You" is as clear cut case as there is of a band outshining the original version to such an extent that no one even bothers to mention the Joan Baez original, because no one wants to make Joan feel bad about herself.

Whereas Baez dove deep down into the sorrow pit when she sang "babe, I'd like to stay here," Robert Plant makes it sound like the decision to leave is literally ripping his heart right out of him. And of course, Page, Bonham, and Jones do their part to make it a typically epic Zeppelin track.