Blade Radio Show-Revealed: The Greatest Led Zeppelin Track

I've had these discussions with myself for decades. The greatest rock song ever created is, to me, unquestionably, Stairway To Heaven.
Unabated.
However!!!!!!!!!!

Transcript

Blade: 0:29

Hey, what is the greatest Zeppelin song? Have you ever had that discussion with anybody? Lord, I hope it's not in a bar where everybody's drunk, because there'll be fisticuffs. It's the impossible question to answer, because this is one of the few bands where every song they do is fantastic, is one of the few bands where every song they do is fantastic, every one of them. That's all you seem to do, messing around every guy in town. My greatest Led Zeppelin song is the one that I happen to be listening to at that moment, and if I'm not listening to one at that moment, it's the last Zeppelin song that I was listening to and right now I am listening to. Your Time Is Gonna Come. Do me a favor, take a break from your Zeppelin For about three or four months, like I did, then go back and pick any song. Gee, you're like wow, because everything you listen to in between pales Everything, everything.

Blade: 2:06

Trust me, the program director at WRDU FM 106.1 in Raleigh was Michael Hughes back then 1986 or 7. And while he was at the station one Saturday doing his due program director diligences, he was there one day and I was working my weekly Saturday death shift, which is what I called it. It was 10 am to 3 pm, which ruined every single Saturday for me. You can't do anything in the morning and you can't do anything in the afternoon, and you can't have a weekend off to get out of town somewhere. But he cracked open the control room door and he stuck only his head in. Last guy I wanted to see ever, but it was funny. He had a funny look on his face and it was different this time. The smile on his face told me that I was going to like what he was going to interrupt my artistry for Because actually, thinking back on it, he really was one of us, one of the few program directors that was one of us, even though he wasn't an authority figure. But as I turned around and removed my headphones to see what he was up to, without a word he stepped in with both feet and he stood proudly upright, almost as if he were at attention, with both hands. Behind his back Out comes his right hand and he's holding a cart, which is what we played songs on back then mid to late 80s. They looked exactly like the eight-track tapes of the late 70s, but they featured only two stereo tracks, long enough to feature basically one song only. And you can just picture stacks of carts in a radio station control room instead of stacks of albums or CDs in a radio station control room instead of stacks of albums or CDs, compact discs, if I'm not mistaken and I usually am replaced these carts about 1986. And it was probably some sort of computerized software that played the squashed MP3s starting around 1996. And it's been the same since. I'm pretty sure radio stations.

Blade: 4:05

Well, what I said, not asking hey, here's a lost zeppelin track, I just got it, you can play it if you want. Hughes says, and he said with that classic, hey, you better be impressed or you're not worth the dirt. You stand on, look that he had. And he tossed it to me and I caught it and I turned it the right side up and I took a look at it and read the typewritten label hey, hey, what can I do? Okay, it's got to be new zeppelin song. I've never heard of it, you know. He said it's one of those lost zeppelin songs. Just give it a spin, walks out of the room. And so I waited until I'll never forget the song I was playing before I played this song REM's the One I Love. So it ended and it came right on, introduced a new Zeppelin song.

Blade: 4:57

Wanna tell you about the girl I love, my.

Blade: 5:01

She looks so fine.

Blade: 5:03

She's the only one that I've been dreaming of.

Blade: 5:06

Maybe someday she will be all mine. I want to tell her that I love her. So I threw her with every touch. I need to tell her she's the only one I really know, and I left a pause for effect. Okay, it's not so new, but it is new. Nobody knows what I'm talking about, but I'll bet they're interested and so I explain that and I knew this at the time.

Blade: 5:39

It's a B-side of the 45 of the single the Immigrant Song, which came out in 1970, zeppelin III, and I played it. Wow, I don't know what to say, but just wow. And I still listen to it and go wow, singin' lonely. Everybody's with the one day love. I walk the town, keep a-searchin' all around Lookin' for my street corner girl. I've got a warm, warm ball all day. I've got a warm. She won't be true. No, no, I've got a warm. Who's dead drunk all the time. I said I got a little woman and she won't be true. I'm in the bars with a metal guitar. That's a special song, like every Zeppelin song is.

Blade: 6:43

You know and I'm working on a Saturday I never got any phone calls. Nobody wants to call a radio station in the middle of the day on Saturday. Phones never exploded at lunchtime on Saturday, especially when there were no cell phones anywhere, if you think about it. But they did that day after the airing of the new Zeppelin song. Hey, hey, what can I do? For the first time ever in Raleigh, oh, so I listened to it now just for a moment, and it's the greatest Led Zeppelin song.

Blade: 7:11

The only answer to the discussion of what the greatest Zepp song is is the one that you're listening to right now, and if you're not listening to one right now, it's the last one you listen to. So I've had two greatest Zeppelin songs on this show. How many more times? And hey, hey, what can I do? When I think back on that day and that moment and why I would remember that? I just don't know. There's so many things to remember. I can only remember how well. Here's why I remember it.

Blade: 7:42

I can only remember how happy I was to be in the right place at the right time to play that song, you know, and the guy's throwing me the song playing it for the first time, being the fact that I hated being in there every Saturday from 10 am to 3 pm, so I'm gonna put you down for a while. So I'm gonna put you down for a while. Come on, man, get me off Saturdays. I always used to yell at him Get me off Saturdays. It ruins my weekend. Nah, I gotta have my front line on on this huge day. Part Hughes would say, yeah, but it was old to me, but it was brand new. And you know what? The Zeppelin songs do not matter if they're old or they're new. It's what they call timeless. Did you know? I love you, baby, my love for you, I could never hide.