The Yardbirds was a cutting edge invention for its time. The band was the first to play grittier American-styled blues for British audiences, and one of the first to adopt dark psychedelia.
The Yardbirds are one of the greatest rock bands of all time. But ask most fans about the group, and they’ll just know it from its brief association with Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck and Jimmy Page.
How about giving the band its due? How about acknowledging the group’s influence? These are the 10 greatest songs by The Yardbirds.
Once you’re done with this, you may also enjoy these album guides about these seminal 1960s bands:
The Greatest 10 Songs by The Yardbirds
10. ”I’m A Man”
To be in a blues band circa the mid 1960s in Britain was the coolest thing a young adult could do. To be a member of The Yardbirds meant that you were, likely, in the coolest band in Britain.
Yeah, sure, bands like The Rolling Stones were the bigger fish. And, yes, the British Invasion spearheaded by The Beatles was happening on the other side of the Atlantic. But just listen to the Yardbirds’ live rendition of Bo Diddley’s “I’m a Man” and tell me that it’s not glorious.
9. ”Over, Under, Sideways, Down”
The Yardbirds marked the beginning of the guitar hero era. It isn’t merely the fact that three of the most famous six-string players, Eric Clapton, Jimmy Page and Jeff Beck played in the band.
It’s also the fact that on the wonderful ”Over, Under, Sideways, Down,” for example, Jeff Beck pushes a classic rock n’ roll riff into daring new territory. It’s a memorable part backed by a strong lyric by Keith Relf. But it may also be the best early psych-rock band that you’ve never heard, I think.
8. ”Smokestack Lightning”
Of course, the hip British blues bands of the 1960s were covering or straight-up imitating the older, American masters.
In 1963, a small bit of those dues was paid off when the already legendary Sonny Boy Williamson was invited to Europe for gigs, and The Yardbirds, with Eric Clapton on lead guitar, were asked to back him. The results are a wonderful document of blues turning into what we’d now call “classic rock.”
7. ”You’re a Better Man Than I”
The Yardbirds were hardly a walking political advert. Yet “You’re a Better Man Than I” is an exception and features some of the best lyrics about acceptance and integration in any 1960s song, in my opinion. It’s no wonder that Steven Tyler was so fond of it that he integrated in his own band’s “Livin’ on the Edge.”
- You may be interested in reading Alt77’s “Aersomith Albums Ranked” deep dive
6. “Happenings Ten Years Time Ago”
Jimmy Page joined The Yardbirds as a way to help his pal Jeff Beck balance his playing. Instead, Page and Beck quickly became a guitar duo, a precursor to the twin attack of groups like Thin Lizzy.
However, of course, it didn’t last. There aren’t many recordings of the pair playing together on studio recordings.
The dark psychedelia of “Happenings Ten Years Time Ago” may just be the best one. It certainly points the way to what The Jeff Beck Group and Led Zeppelin would attempt to do pretty soon.
5. ”Heart Full of Soul”
Technically, this is The Yardbirds’ other pop hit. Frankly, there are traces of sheer brilliance here. The British Invasion hooks are fine. But it’s new recruit Jeff Beck, and his attempt to make a lead guitar sound like a sitar that is the most interesting musical element here.
- Check out our “Top 10 Songs by Jeff Beck” article
- Here’s a guide to Eric Clapton’s Cream and the band’s best songs
4. ”For Your Love”
For a very brief time, The Yardbirds were a pop band. “For Your Love” was the band’s biggest hit. And many thought that the group could replicate the success of bands like The Rolling Stones or The Kinks, who had also started out by glueing British skiffle to North American blues.
Notoriously, Jeff Beck resented this fact and hated the song. There’s certainly little of the blues here. What it clearly is, however, is one of the greatest pop gems of the mid-1960s.
3. ”Glimpses”
What does this remind you of? If your answer is the “the first Led Zeppelin album,” you’re onto something.
By 1967, Jimmy Page was steering The Yardbirds. Sadly, “Little Games” was a commercial flop with neither the public nor the band able to decide whether The Yardbirds were a pop group or a bluesy, psychedelic one.
“Glimpses” sounds positively eerie and paranoid, I think. It’s highly adventurous, cleverly orchestrated music.
Of course, this wasn’t a hit despite Keith Relf, Chris Dreja and Jim McCarty being willing participants in Page’s experimentation. However, the song is indeed a glimpse into the psych-rock future of rock music.
- Here’s a look at the “Top 10 Led Zeppelin Songs”
2. ”Shapes of Things”
Jeff Beck is one of the greatest rock guitarists of all time. Blessed with a greater ear and more control than nearly all of his contemporaries, save, perhaps, Jimi Hendrix, on whom he was an influence, Beck, however, grew out of his “pure rock” phase by the end of the 1960s.
Luckily, “Shapes of Things” is a reminder of just what a visionary he was. Blending skiffle rhythms, psychedelic pomposity, and laying on feedback over Eastern-tinged lead lines, Beck’s playing here is phenomenal.
- Want to read more about Beck’s greatest student? Here are Jimi Hendrix‘s 10 best songs.
1. ”The Train Kept A-Rollin’”
It’s true. The single biggest influence The Yardbirds had on rock music isn’t through any of their songs specifically. It is in the way so many bands have quoted or outright ripped them off over the years.
”The Train Kept A-Rollin’” is a jump blues standard of the early 1950s. However, The Yardbirds transformed it into the proto-hard blues that bands like Led Zeppelin, Aerosmith or Guns N’ Roses would later turn into a stadium-filling endeavour.
With Jeff Beck’s exploratory, psyched-out fuzz guitar at the centre of things, and Jimmy Page’s rhythm playing later adding colour to live performances, ”The Train Kept A-Rollin’” is The Yardbirds at the group’s very best.
