Just when I thought the deep cut situation on the classic rock station could not get any goofier, they went and proved me wrong. Hey station, here's a tip: if you play a Led Zeppelin song that I can identify by title it is not a deep cut. Before I get into that, let me briefly add that I am not the only one who has noticed that the deep cut trend is no longer about actual deep cuts.
I had an email from the Cowboy recently because the classic rock station is also his default radio choice and has been for years. He was mentioning that recently bands like Bon Jovi and Mötley Crüe have been added to the rotation so they must have been inducted into the classic rock category for the new year. That station was always good for You Give Love A Bad Name and Smokin' In The Boys' Room, I'm wondering if they have expanded the Bon Jovi/Mötley Crüe library. Then there is this:
Also this year I've noticed they've dusted off some different oldie by already played-out acts; your Zevon situation being a prime example. Here's another: all of a sudden I hear them play Dragon Attack by Queen. It's not a fluke, I've heard it two different occasions....
A-ha! So that is what is going on! Excitable Boy has been dusted off and is being touted as a deep cut since they aren't playing Werewolves Of London as much. Genius! I suspect that by played-out the Cowboy was thinking of the overplayed sense and not the washed up sense. I'll double check, but he likes Warren Zevon even more than I do so I can't imagine him calling Warren washed up. And I'm going to pretend that my site is the reason Dragon Attack was added to the rotation. It couldn't be the fact that The Game was the most wildly successful (out of the gate) Queen album in the United States. No, that's not it at all.
Playing Dragon Attack is better than playing Another One Bites The Dust for the zillionth time although I don't think it counts as a deep cut. A good cut, yes. An album track, yes. However, I think enough people owned that record to make it nothing more than that. A good album track. They've always played album tracks in addition to an artist's more traditional singles. In fact, I sometimes think that every track from the first four Van Halen albums are all on the playlist. I couldn't tell you what those singles were but I know the first four albums and I don't even like Van Halen that much.
I dislike Van Halen for a lot of the reasons I dislike Led Zeppelin. In this case they were overplayed by my former spouse and not my high school friend but the effect was the same. Hate-induced hives. Still, I am sometimes in a particularly tolerant mood and will sit through some Van Halen or some Led Zeppelin, whichever the classic rock station decides to play.
Well. A couple of weeks ago I was out running errands. I was starting my new job the following morning and I needed some nicotine gum. At my last job I took a smoke break about every forty-five minutes. There was nothing else to do! At this job there are proper structured break times and no smoking on the property. Not even in my car in the parking lot. It would have to be in my car on the street. Or me standing across the street. Ah, no. I didn't smoke in high school so I never lived the sneaking behind the building lifestyle, I'm certainly not going to start now.
On the plus side, my cigarette intake has been cut by about seventy-five percent. And I actually like nicotine gum. Always have. I am soothed knowing I am getting a stream of nicotine delivered to my head all day. However, it was not soothing the night before I started work. I was all ticked off that I was out running errands and missing SVU (even though I was taping it) because of some freaking no tobacco policy. So when the classic rock station announced a block of Led Zeppelin I left the radio on. I mean, Led Zeppelin couldn't make my evening worse unless the former members also have a no tobacco policy.
It wasn't a bad choice. I heard Good Times, Bad Times, a song I could have identified when it got to the chorus even if they hadn't told me they were playing it. Then I ran into the drugstore and came out in time to hear...the two tracks I like. You know...those two. I don't know the titles, as is the case with most of the Led Zeppelin catalog. What a fine and dandy evening with Led Zeppelin!
Then I heard, "Here's a deep cut from Led Zeppelin." Okay. Here's me expecting some blues cover song that was a B-side on a Holland-only 45 release. That is what I expect from deep cuts. Something that was very limited in one way or another and may only be known to serious collectors of the group. And the song started and about two notes in I started talking back to the radio. "When The Levee Breaks? Are you kidding me?"
When The Levee Breaks is one of probably five Zep songs I can name instantly. This was fairly soon after the Excitable Boy experience so I thought it might be an alternate Zeppelin take. I don't know if it was, there is no way I'm going to know the difference between two versions of When The Levee Breaks unless you play them back to back. And then I'm only going to be able to tell them apart if one of them is the Kristin Hersh cover.
Alternate take or not, I don't think that When The Levee Breaks counts as a deep cut. I want something obscure! Give me something recorded at a rehearsal studio two days after Robert Plant joined the group! Give me something from a family party where Jimmy Page played Happy Birthday on the piano! Give me something to work with or stop calling them deep cuts.