When the Yardbirds finally called it a day in 1968, the song was retitled "Dazed and Confused", and during the first tours by new band Led Zeppelin it became a centrepiece for the group, before the success of "Whole Lotta Love" on their second album. The Led Zeppelin version contained altered lyrics by Robert Plant compared to the Yardbirds version and with John Bonham on drums, the song developed into a manic, menacing performance on stage. The live version, often clocking at around 20 minutes, allowed bassist John Paul Jones and Bonham freeform scope to include riffs from other songs such as "The Crunge", "Walters Walk" and Scott McKenzie's "San Francisco" to name a few.

The song was recorded in October 1968 at Olympic Studios, London.

Dazed and Confused is a 1993 movie written and directed by Richard Linklater with a large ensemble cast, many of whom share the spotlight.

The movie tells the stories of the last day of school in 1976 in a Texas suburb. The camera dips in and out of the lives of a variety of students at the school, rather than focussing on a single individual - in a manner reminiscent of, but less extreme than, Linklater's earlier film Slacker.

The film paid considerable attention to period and locational detail, (mostly) the cars and music of the time, the soundtrack featuring rock staples of the era. It also occasionally featured a sense of melancholy, of having "missed out" by a few years on the cataclysmic events of the late 1960's.