I Luv “Stairway to Heaven” by Led Zeppelin

I would rank “Stairway To Heaven” by English rock band Led Zepellin as my No.1 favorite rock song. It was released in late 1971 when I was in Form 2 at Kai Chung Middle School in Binatang but I was not a fan of rock music at that time. The song became my favourite when I was in Canada as it was played so often on the radio there. So in a way, hearing the song always brings back fond memories of my stay in Canada.

“Stairway to Heaven” was composed by guitarist Jimmy Page and vocalist Robert Plant for the band’s untitled fourth studio album (often referred to as Led Zeppelin IV). It is often referred to as one of the greatest rock songs of all time.

“Stairway To Heaven” is a phenomenal piece of songwriting, with its Celtic folk undertones and orchestral crescendos. It was composed by guitarist Jimmy Page and vocalist Robert Plant for the band’s fourth studio album, Led Zeppelin IV. Though never released as a single, “Stairway to Heaven” is the most requested and played song on FM radios in the United States to date.

“Stairway to Heaven” by Led Zeppelin

It is rather surprising, considering that “Stairway to Heaven” doesn’t exactly fit the usual recipe for commercial radio success. It has a musical structure closer to classical music and a near-oppressive length.

The song has three sections, each one progressively increasing in tempo and volume. The song begins with a slow acoustic-based folk melody accompanied by recorders before introducing electric instrumentation. The final section is an uptempo hard rock arrangement highlighted by Page’s intricate guitar solo accompanying Plant’s vocals that end with the plaintive a cappella line: “And she’s buying a stairway to heaven”.

The song “speeds up like an adrenaline flow”. The song consists of several distinct sections, beginning with a quiet introduction on a finger-picked six-string guitar and four recorders in a Renaissance music style (ending at 2:15) and gradually moving into a slow electric middle section (2:16–5:33), then a long guitar solo (5:34–6:44), before the faster hard rock final section (6:45 to 7:45), ending with a short vocals-only epilogue. Plant sings the opening, middle and epilogue sections in his mid-vocal range, but sings the hard rock section in his higher range which borders on falsetto.

The song’s length precluded its release in full form as a single. Despite pressure from Atlantic Records the band would not authorise the editing of the song for single release, making “Stairway to Heaven” one of the most well-known and popular rock songs never to have been released as a single.

“Stairway to Heaven” crystallized the essence of the band. It had everything there and showed the band at its best… as a band, as a unit. It was a milestone for the band. Every musician wants to do something of lasting quality, something which will hold up for a long time and Led Zepellin did it with “Stairway”.

Over the years, a number of people have put forth the opinion that the delicate acoustic melody that opens Zeppelin’s song bears a close resemblance to the 1968 instrumental “Taurus” by the group Spirit. Zeppelin opened for Spirit in an early American tour, leaving little doubt that Led Zeppelin had heard the Spirit song before “Stairway to Heaven” was written. I have listened to “Taurus” and I have to agree that “Stairway To Heaven” bears a close resemblance to “Taurus”. Do listen to “Taurus” and make your judgement.

In May 2014, Mark Andes, bassist of the group Spirit, and a trust acting on behalf of Randy California, filed a copyright infringement suit against Led Zeppelin and injunction against the “release of the album containing the song” in an attempt to obtain a writing credit for the late California. A lack of sufficient resources is cited as one of the reasons that Spirit’s members and their survivors did not file the suit earlier. A friend of California’s mother explained: “Nobody had any money, and they thought the statute of limitations was done”, adding, “It will be nice if Randy got the credit”. If the Spirit lawsuit is successful, past royalties earned by the song—estimated at around US$600 million—will not be part of the settlement, but the publisher and composers may be entitled to a share of the future profits.

“Stairway to Heaven” continues to top radio lists of the greatest rock songs, including a 2006 Guitar World readers poll of greatest guitar solos. As of the year 2000, “Stairway to Heaven” had been played on the radio over 3 million times. At eight minutes per play, that adds up to about 46 years of continuous playback.

“Stairway to Heaven” sheet music has sold more than one million copies—more than any other single piece of sheet music in rock history, clocking up an average of 15,000 copies yearly. Led Zeppelin IV, the album upon which “Stairway” appears, has sold over 23 million copies in the USA alone.

In 2004, Rolling Stone magazine put it at number 31 on their list of “The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time”. An article from the 29 January 2009 Guitar World magazine rated Jimmy Page’s guitar solo at number one in the publication’s 100 Greatest Guitar Solos in Rock and Roll History. Since 2001, the New York City-based classic rock radio station Q104.3 has ranked “Stairway to Heaven” no. 1 on their annual “Top 1,043 Classic Rock Songs of All Time”.

“Stairway to Heaven” is the most popular rock song of all time. You might even call it the Holy Grail of classic rock. “Stairway to Heaven” is not just number one. It is the One, the quintessence!

While browsing YouTube, I came across “Stairway To Heaven” performed by Ann & Nancy Wilson (Heart). It is a pretty impressive cover. Do you agree?