Wonderful One

Page/Plant
Выпущена в 1994 году на альбоме Пейджа/Планта "No Quarter"
Записана 24 августа 1994 в Studio 2, London TV Studios.

Содержание
(More on that later) That's why I was thinking about the poet John Cleveland, who I guess would be considered a "minor" poet as he isn't as well known as his contemporaries (such as Dryden, Samuel Johnson, etc.). Cleveland was considered in his day to be a "decadent" poet in that he tended to use language and words in unconventional ways. Dryden said he "disfigured" language, but even though his colleagues and critics of the time didn't think much of him, Cleveland was quite popular among the reading public (sound like any musicians we've heard of?).
Before continuing, bear in mind that all this is just my (maybe far-fetched) interpretation, not meant to be taken as gospel….
Cleveland wrote a poem called "Fuscara, or the Bee Errant," which is about a bee who stings a lady or flower (depending on how you read it) named Fuscara to drink her nectar. The bee starts at the finger, then moves up the wrist, and the arm, and then (quote from the poem):

"But oh! what waspe was't that could prove
Ravilliack to my Queen of Love?
The King of Bees now's jealous grown
Lest her beams should melt his throne…

Live-Hony all, the Envyous Elfe
Stung her, cause sweeter than himself.
Sweetness and she are so ally'd
The Bee committed parricide."

Essentially, a "Ravilliack" is an assassin. Maybe you can see some parallels here, ie, about jealousy and competition in P&P's respective musical careers before the grand reunion. You could also consider that it ties in with the old honey-dripping motif introduced in "Black Dog" and later in The Honeydrippers, depending on how you look at it. (There's also two lines which go "About her finger he doth cling/I'th' fashion of a wedding ring" which could fit with Plant's "marriage" comments about the reunion. This would also explain the henna-decorated hand photograph on the NQ album--Middle Eastern women generally only decorate their hands like this on their wedding day.)
Anyway (assuming anyone's still reading), there's another connection too… Cleveland wrote a poem once that was stolen by another poet known only (to me) as M. Randolph, who published Cleveland's poem as his own work in a book (sound familiar to a certain group, erm, "borrowing" some blues lyrics way back when?). Since copyright issues and lawsuits were largely unknown entities in Cleveland's day, he had no real legal recourse, but reclaimed the poem after M. Randolph's death by writing another poem about the incident (at least he had a sense of humour about it!); that poem ended with these two lines:

"Wee'l part the child, and yet commit no slaughter,
So shall it be thy Son, and yet my Daughter."

What Cleveland is saying here is that both he and M. Randolph could be considered the original poem's authors, since it was credited at different times to both of them.

So you can see how, in "Wonderful One," the (symbolic) "Queen of Love," or the one the two (symbolic) bees were fighting over, may have flown to seek a "daughter," that is, to seek a poem or piece of music, rather than a literal daughter. You can also see the connection between two people having something in common and deciding to share it again. (On a side note, if you saw the Coverdale/Page interview in the May 1993 issue of Guitar World, you may remember Coverdale referring to the songwriting process for the C/P album as a "pregnancy.")

In this scenario, then, "throw it down" may simply refer to "throw down the gauntlet," or stop fighting.
Now about that "Cleveland rain": Cleveland was pretty well known for throwing in words in his poems not because they actually made sense or fit with the poem that well, but because they rhymed with a previous word he wanted to use.

(For instance, here's a line from one of his poems: "Had sly Ulysses, at the sack/Of Troy, brought Thee his Pedler's pack/And weapons too to know Achilles/From King Lycomedes Phillis…" Now in Greek mythology, Achilles was considered invincible because, when he was born, his mother dipped his body in the River Styx (across which the dead were carried to the underworld). However, she held him by his heel, so that was the only part of his body that could be pierced by an arrow. (You can see a connection here to Plant's broken ankle and Achilles Last Stand, but that's another topic.) A psychic woman forecast that Achilles would be killed at the sack, or destruction, of the city of Troy, and so he disguised himself as a woman to escape the battlefield. However, Ulysses disguised himself as a peddlar and offered the "maiden" a choice between a sewing needle and a sword; Achilles betrayed himself by choosing the sword. In the myth, however, King Lycomedes' daughter's name was not Phyllis, it was Pyrrha. In his poem, Cleveland changed the name so it would rhyme with Achilles.)

Thus, in "Wonderful One," Cleveland could be a reference to the poet Cleveland, and "rain" (in the Cleveland poetic tradition) is thrown in just because it rhymes with "again," not really because it makes sense with the rest of the song.

Текст

So throw it down Cleveland rain
The Queen of Love has flown again
To seek her daughter

Who must lie beside the thief
Whose golden tongue she will believe
Defies the order

Oh, that is why  [that is love]
Oh, that is why
Shall we dance and never stop
Take my hand and stop the clock
From turning over

Spirit weave and spirit bend
In the move that has no end
That we must follow
Oh, oh

Show me your eyes
Oh light of the sun
Touch me with fire
My mind is undone
All life inspire
My freedom has come
I drift through desire
My wonderful one

When you do what you do
I can never, never, never
Let you go

And when you feel the way you feel
You can never, no, never let it show

Oh,show me your eyes
Oh light of the sun
Touch me with fire
My mind is undone
All life inspire
My freedom has come
I drift through desire
My wonderful one
Oh, ah, oh-ah-oh, ah, ooh.

Throw it down Cleveland Rain
The Queen of Love has flown again
To seek her daughter

[Who lies beneath the seas]
Who must lie beneath the theif
Whose golden tongue she will believe
Defies the order

That is why, That is why
That is why, That is why