Rather than focus on what we all think is the best, let’s go for the real awful stuff they did. The reason I felt like starting this topic is that one station around here (like countless others, I’m sure) does a nightly “Zep Set” where they play 3 songs by them at 9:00. I feel like saying, “Geez, we know they’re one of the best rock bands ever, but you don’t have to pretend that all their songs are good.” My selection is one they just now played–“Down by the Seaside.” What a steaming pile of crap that is.
Anyone else have one that just makes you cringe (or crunge)?
I realize that this’ll probably get me lynched, but the damn tune has just been played to death! “Stairway to Heaven” Yeah, it was cool for awhile, but now, that’s the one song everyone thinks about when you say, “Led Zeppelin” and I’m sick of hearing it.
Apparently when they played this for the first time on tour, their fans were just stunned. It was like, “What’s with this slow sensitive crap; we wanna hear Whole Lotta Love!”
Obviously it grew on people. I’m sure anyone who hung on for the guitar solo instead of going to the john to roll another joint came around to it pretty fast.
I have to vote for Down By the Seaside, too. Simply awful! Now, I need to go distract my brain, because I’ve got it running though my head. At least it replaced the screeching Alanis Morrisette song that was stuck in my head earlier today. I’ve heard that you can get rid of a song playing endlessly in your mind by telling another person about it. My husband will be coming home on his break in about ten minutes… he’s gonna kill me.
I used to be the biggest Zep mark on the planet but they are so overplayed I can’t stand them anymore. Songs I’ve ALWAYS hated by them, even as a fan:
D’yer M’aker
any of their slow blues songs
Custard Pie
The Lemon Song (that line about “squeeze my lemon until the juice runs doen my leg” has got to be the stupidest lyric ever written)
I remember the first time I heard that album, I dashed home all excited, first new album from Led Zep for a few years and at last I was getting the chance to buy it when it was new, I’d never had the money to do that before.
I can almost hear the needle thunk into the groove as I turned it up loud, and the first track was great with its start In the eeeeeeeeevening crash!! big guitar ripping in and some synth, which point I thought to myself ‘Oh hello, is that the new direction they’re taking? Good for them for a bit of adventure’.
Alas, having raised my expectation that a glorious grizzled old dinasaur had come back to show all the New Wavers, and the Punks and all the rest how to really rock, it went on to ‘South bound Saurez’ which is distinctly average and just went major downhill from there.
That first track was good but it just made the disappointment in the rest of the album all the greater, and that’s why I nominate it for the worst Led Zep song ever.
I’m not really a Zeppelin fan, so I don’t even know most of their songs, but D’yer Mak’r makes me want to smash something. Maybe it is satire as mentioned above, but that doesn’t mean I don’t want to smash something.
