Reader, we left each other on our way home to listen to some thunderous guitar riffs. I confess that the walk home took a while, our destination delayed somewhat by life and work. No matter, though – here we now are, poised to don our leather trousers and a frayed sleeveless denim jacket, and walk into the spotlight with our dominant fist-clenched arm raised, screaming ‘Let’s rock, Wembley!’ (Or Poole or Mold or whichever county court you are in today.)

I am keen to get to the end of the article to tell you about the second magnificent music-based dinner conversation I’ve had with a fellow barrister, and I promise you that there is a link with today’s theme. But first, does listening to monstrous guitar riffs matter to barristers? I am tempted to respond ‘hell, yeah!’ but in deference to the learned readers of this august journal I shall tone down my response, and instead present some evidence. I’ve heard two excellent lectures in the past year from silks about the power of music to put you in the zone before stepping into court, to fill you with confidence before cross-examination or submissions. The second of those started with Survivor’s ‘Eye of the Tiger’ and, as ever, I challenge you to listen now to that riff and not feel just a little like Marty McFly must have done before playing ‘that’ power chord in Back to the Future…

Oh, and another thing to clear up – we’re not in a guitar shop, and I have every right to refer to the riff in Led Zeppelin’s ‘Stairway to Heaven’, without shame or fear of reprisals. So you can too. And while we’re at it, let’s re-enact together that scene in Wayne’s World where Queen’s ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ plays on the car stereo and everyone head bangs in unison. After all, we barristers surely all know a head banger or two, right?

Reader, do you not feel at this moment – but a few riffs in – that you are capable of climbing any legal mountain before you? (Or is that reference a bit too Julie Andrews?) I have tried to avoid these pieces turning into lists of my favourites. I have consistently failed so far, and I approach the rest of this article conscious of a slow descent into further failure. But I cannot and will not leave you without inspiring at least one of you right now to play (with volume turned up to 11, naturally) Led Zeppelin’s ‘In My Time Of Dying’ for the first time and imagining the headrush you must be feeling when, after a slow-ish start, Jimmy Page (pictured above) lets rip with a riff that would surely provoke even the dryest appellate judge to place one foot on their White Book and play air guitar for song’s duration. I tried this once on a sound engineer friend – he emerged from the ten-minute marvel in a state of shocked awe and could only mutter ‘I now have an opinion on Led Zeppelin…’

Listening to AC/DC’s ‘Back In Black’, Black Sabbath’s ‘Paranoid’ and even – for I am at heart and will always be an indie kid – Nirvana’s ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ ought to be compulsory for any barrister about to walk into court. It’s free, and better for your health than whisky. In guitar riff-land there is no guilt – you can, with a straight face, play Deep Purple’s ‘Smoke on the Water’ (though I prefer ‘Child In Time’) or Rainbow’s ‘Since You’ve Been Gone’ with the same aura of cool knowingness as younger readers might play Arctic Monkeys’ ‘Do I Wanna Know?’ Try Metallica’s ‘Sad But True’ or Killing Joke’s ‘Millennium’ to put the fear of the Maker into the junior tenant.

I have been transported on a tidal wave of power chords, but we can now turn to the conversation I mentioned earlier. I was talking over dinner to a barrister and the conversation turned (well, technically, I turned the conversation) to music. He told me that he lived in the very manor house where Led Zeppelin recorded the drums for ‘When The Levee Breaks’. I like to think I rejoiced in his good fortune, but I fear I was momentarily so consumed by envy that I could not speak. For that I apologise. For referring to the song, with its magnificent pulsing riff, no apology is necessary – just turn the volume up and play on repeat until the end of days, or until court starts.