My #4 All-Time Favorite Song: When the Levee Breaks by Led Zeppelin

WHEN THE LEVEE BREAKS by Led Zeppelin, the #4 song on my list of 500 all-time favorites, had an interesting history with me.  Since it came out as the final track on the British hard rock band's fourth, untitled album in the early 1970s it had been a regular staple on album rock radio...I would often listen to the lengthy, relentless instrumental buildup at the start, only to switch stations when singer Robert Plant finally broke in.  This went on for years until the band...already broken up for a decade after the death of drummer John Bonham...came out with their box set CD compilation in late 1990.  My local rock station, WRUF/Rock 104, decided to play the entire set and I listened to much of it, realizing in the process what a remarkably talented and creative band Led Zeppelin was.  Among several of the tracks that I liked a lot, When the Levee Breaks stood out and quickly became a song I couldn't get enough of...I crowned it my "song of the year" for 1991 twenty years after it came out and afterward also had it as my number one top all-time favorite song for some two decades.  The song was originally written and recorded by blues artists Kansas Joe McCoy and Memphis Minnie following the devastating Mississippi flood of 1927...the broken levees around New Orleans due to Hurricane Katrina in 2005 brought on a revival of the Led Zeppelin cover on TV and radio.  Their version features brilliant harmonica work throughout, and the drumming is echoing and booming.  Sometimes I'm irritated by Plant's forays into high-pitched, screeching singing on many of their songs, but he's more subdued on this piece and fits in perfectly with the instruments.  The song speaks of a flood and broken levees, but it extends to all of the storms people experience and this year's pandemic is no exception.  There isn't a weak moment in it, from the drum, harmonica and guitar intro, Plant's verses, the riveting mid-song instrumental break with one of the all-time greatest harmonica solos, and that long, trailing conclusion.  By the way, When the Levee Breaks may well be the only song in my all-time favorite Top Six that you've heard...I have never heard any of the upcoming three songs on my list played on either radio or TV, although in my estimation they all should have been monumental hits...