Get the Led Out...

This weekend I was on my way somewhere and ended up chatting with the driver. He’s one of my host Ali Adamjee’s drivers, and I’m not dead sure of his name, except that it sounds like Nissan, so I find it easy to remember. If you’re going to have a driver, my advice is to always make sure that he’s named after a make of car. So usually, I just mumble something close to "Nissan" and it seems to work.

Anyway, Nissan is a huge, gentle giant, speaks fairly good broken English, and loves music. These guys spend a lot of time just sitting in the car, but he listens to music the whole time and seems wholly satisfied. I had just bought that newer Elvis greatest hits CD (to listen to Suspicious Minds of course) and he noticed that I had a new disc with me. So he insisted that we listen to a few tracks. I explained a bit about Elvis and he seemed to enjoy it. So I asked him what type of music he liked the most. He said, "Oh, all music sir, but guitars and drums the best." Rock n Roll, Nissan, Rock n Roll. Then he points to the glove compartment and says, "My best is number eleven sir." I had no idea what he was talking about for a second, but then opened the glove compartment, and as usual, found no gloves, but did find a Led Zeppelin CD. And what was track eleven? None other than "Stairway to Heaven."

10,000 Miles, across oceans and continents, across religions and cultures, across economic and class lines, Stairway is still a classic. I was going to tell Nissan that one of my favourite Zeppelin songs is "Kashmir," but I thought that might cause some confusion.