Favorite Song #1

When the Levee Breaks by Led Zeppelin (from Led Zeppelin (IV), 1971)

By the time I heard my first Led Zeppelin song (Whole Lotta Love) in January 1971, this British hard blues-rock band had already issued three albums. I didn’t like Whole Lotta Love (I still don’t), and only heard three subsequent songs, Livin’ Lovin’ Maid, Immigrant Song, and Black Dog, until one day in 1973 when I heard Stairway to Heaven in its entirety. Like many others, I grew to consider it as a favorite of mine, and looked forward to hearing new Zeppelin songs. At the end of 1973, D’yer Maker was released, and I liked it as well. As the 70s wore on, album-rock radio stations (like 103.5 WSHE and 94.9 ZETA-4 in South Florida) saturated their playlists with Led Zeppelin songs. One of them had an exciting instrumental beginning and lead-up, but once singer Robert Plant started singing, I’d switch stations. Back then, I never listened to this song all the way through. It was When the Levee Breaks, the final track on their heralded “Fourth” album. It wasn’t until a period of Led Zeppelin revival in 1989-1991 that I heard it in its entirety, and by that time I was impressed! As a matter of fact, I’ve considered it to be my all-time favorite song since 1991!

When the Levee Breaks is actually a cover, rearranged to a great extent, of an old blues song with the same title by Kansas Joe McCoy and Memphis Minnie. Its subject is the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927, which affected the Mississippi River area and caused great damage, more than 200 deaths, and a great dislocation of people. After Katrina, this song was played a lot as a fitting tribute to those suffering from the effects of the broken levees in New Orleans. It begins with a powerful, loud drum beat followed by a shrill, whining harmonica that keeps the listener company off and on throughout the song. Robert Plant’s singing, Jimmy Page’s guitar work (with bassist John Paul Jones), and John Bonham’s relentless pounding on the drums fill When the Levee Breaks with a sense, to be sure, of blues and foreboding, but also of endurance and survival. And I suppose that it’s this, on top of the dazzling music that this song is filled with, that’s made it my favorite for so long. From beginning to end, there isn’t a weak moment anywhere.

As Led Zeppelin, Jimmy Page, Robert Plant, John Paul Jones, and John Bonham collaborated in a way that other bands could only dream of, with an uncanny sense of what worked and what didn’t. I own all of their studio albums now and am very familiar all of the material on them. My other “Zep” favorites are Your Time is Gonna Come, Dazed and Confused, Ramble On, Bring It On Home, Hey Hey What Can I Do, Traveling Riverside Blues, Friends, Gallows Pole, Bron-Y-Aur Stomp, Bron-Y-Aur, Battle of Evermore, Misty Mountain Hop, Four Sticks, Going to California, The Song Remains the Same, Over the Hills and Far Away, Dancing Days, No Quarter, The Ocean, In the Light, Candy Store Rock, In the Evening, Poor Tom, and Wearing and Tearing. If I had done my “Top 30 Favorites” fifteen years ago, many of them would have been Led Zeppelin songs. Although my interest in them has settled a little, I still greatly respect this band and their works. And When the Levee Breaks still tops everything!