“Stairway to Heaven” is one of the most famous and most popular rock songs of all time, and it’s today’s classic song of the day. Believe it or not, this eight-minute-long epic was never released as a single, appearing only as the last cut (track 4) on the first side of the group’s untitled 1971 album, informally known as Led Zeppelin IV.
(Please don’t confuse Led Zeppelin’s “Stairway to Heaven” with the “Stairway to Heaven” written and performed by the late Neil Sedaka, which was yesterday’s classic song of the day. They are two completely different tunes.)
Zeppeliners Jimmy Page and Robert Plant wrote their “Stairway to Heaven” following the group’s fifth American tour; Page did the music, Plant the words. The group recorded it over a three-month period from December 1970 to February 1971, Page’s guitar solo being the last bit recorded.
“Stairway to Heaven” is a song in three distinct acts. There’s the quietish intro with Page’s acoustic guitar and four recorders (the instrument, not the electronic equipment), all played by bassist John Paul Jones. The second section is a slow jam that adds electric guitar, bass, and John Bonham’s thunderous drums, and the final section is an all-out rocker with Page’s famous electric guitar solo and Plant’s screaming vocals.
I won’t even try to decipher the lyrics, which appear to be about a guy who climbs a mountain in search of a mystical hermit, only to find that he himself is the hermit. Or something like that. Even lyricist/singer Robert Plant wasn’t sure what the song was about; in his own words:
“Depending on what day it is, I still interpret the song a different way—and I wrote the lyrics.”
So there’s that.
Back in the day, every rock band on the planet played (or tried to play) “Stairway to Heaven” in their sets. I played it with a couple of different bands back then; I distinctly remember, as a kid in junior high, filling in on drums with a bunch of high school kids, playing “Stairway to Heaven” for some school dance. Believe it or not, a lot of schools used “Stairway to Heaven” as the theme for their proms and dances, which seems a little odd to me.
In any case, “Stairway to Heaven” caught a lot of people’s fancies and it’s become an iconic classic rock track. It was added to the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2003, and Guitar World magazine named Page’s solo the Greatest Guitar Solo of All Time. It’s one of those songs that everybody of a certain age, and many of those younger, know by heart.
Oh, and it’s probably worth mentioning that “Stairway to Heaven” might not be a completely original composition. The band Spirit brought a copyright infringement lawsuit against Page and Plant, alleging that the guitar intro to “Stairway to Heaven” ripped off that group’s 1968 song, “Taurus.” The two groups had toured together on a 1968-1969 tour, so the opportunity for cross-pollination existed. A jury in 2016 ruled that, while there were similarities between the two songs, there was no copyright infringement. The lawyers for Spirit appealed that decision and in 2020 the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled in Led Zeppelin’s favor that “Stairway to Heaven” did not infringe on Spirit’s “Taurus.” Spirit then appealed that decision to the Supreme Court, which denied the appeal, leaving the Ninth Circuit’s decision in place.
Whew.
For today’s daily bonus video of the day, here’s Led Zeppelin in May of 1975 playing a ten-minute-long version of “Stairway to Heaven” live at Earl’s Court Arena in London. It’s a rocker.
