John Bonham, on stage in the US in 1973, whose aggressive drumming style was critical to the hard rock sound associated with the band
Led Zeppelin's music was rooted in the blues.[12] The influence of American blues artists such as Muddy Waters and Skip James was particularly apparent on their first two albums, as was the distinct country blues style ofHowlin' Wolf.[121] Tracks were structured around the twelve-bar blues on every studio album except for one, and the blues directly and indirectly influenced other songs both musically and lyrically.[122] The band were also strongly influenced by the music of the British, Celtic, and American folk revivals.[12] Scottish folk guitarist Bert Jansch helped inspire Page, and from him he adapted open tunings and aggressive strokes into his playing.[26] The band also drew on a wide variety of genres, including world music,[12] and elements of early rock and roll, jazz, country, funk, soul, and reggae, particularly on Houses of the Holy and the albums that followed.[121]
The material on the first two albums was largely constructed out of extended jams of blues standards[12] and folk songs.[123][124] This method led to the mixing of musical and lyrical elements of different songs and versions, as well as improvised passages, to create new material, but would lead to later accusations of plagiarism and legal disputes over copyright.[123] Usually the music was developed first, sometimes with improvised lyrics that might then be rewritten for the final version of the song.[124] From the visit to Bron-Yr-Aur in 1970, the songwriting partnership between Page and Plant became predominant, with Page supplying the music, largely via his acoustic guitar, and Plant emerging as the band's chief lyricist. Jones and Bonham then added to the material, in rehearsal or in the studio, as a song was developed.[125] In the later stages of the band's career, Page took a back seat in composition and Jones became increasingly important in producing music, often composed on the keyboard. Plant would then add lyrics before Page and Bonham developed their parts.[126][127]
Page with the double-neckGibson EDS-1275 used for playing "Stairway to Heaven" live
Early lyrics drew on the band's blues and folk roots, often mixing lyrical fragments from different songs.[128] Many of the band's songs dealt with themes of romance, unrequited love and sexual conquest, which were common in rock, pop and blues music.[129] Some of their lyrics, especially those derived from the blues, have been interpreted as misogynistic.[129] Particularly on Led Zeppelin III, they incorporated elements of mythology and mysticism into their music,[12] which largely grew out of Plant's interest in legends and history.[130] These elements were often taken to reflect Page's interest in the occult, which resulted in accusations that the recordings contained subliminal satanic messages, some of which were said to be contained in backmasking; these claims were generally dismissed by the band and music critics.[131] Susan Fast argues that as Plant emerged as the band's main lyricist, the songs more obviously reflected his alignment with the West Coast counterculture of the 1960s.[132] In the later part of the band's career Plant's lyrics became more autobiographical, and less optimistic, drawing on his own experiences and circumstances.[133]
According to musicologist Robert Walser, "Led Zeppelin's sound was marked by speed and power, unusual rhythmic patterns, contrasting terraced dynamics, singer Robert Plant's wailing vocals, and guitarist Jimmy Page's heavily distorted crunch".[134] These elements mean that they are often cited as one of the progenitors of hard rock[135] and heavy metal[134][4] and they have been described as the "definitive heavy metal band",[12] although the band members have often eschewed the label.[136] Part of this reputation depends on the band's use of distorted guitar riffs on songs like "Whole Lotta Love" and "The Wanton Song".[10][137] Often riffs were not doubled by guitar, bass and drums exactly, but instead there were melodic or rhythmic variations;[138] as in "Black Dog", where three different time signatures are used.[139] Page's guitar playing incorporated elements of the blues scale with those of eastern music.[140]Plant's use of high-pitched shrieks has been compared to Janis Joplin's vocal technique.[10][141] Bonham's drumming was noted for its power, his rapid rolls and his fast beats on a single bass drum.[142] Jones' basslines have been described as melodic and his keyboard playing added a classical touch to the band's sound.[143][10]
Page stated that he wanted Led Zeppelin to produce music that had "light and shade". This began to be more clearly realised beginning with Led Zeppelin III, which made greater use of acoustic instruments.[12] This approach has been seen as exemplified in the fourth album, particularly on "Stairway to Heaven", which begins with acoustic guitar and recorder and ends with drums and heavy electric sounds.[139][144] Towards the end of their recording career, they moved to a more mellow and progressive sound, dominated by Jones' keyboard motifs.[145] They also increasingly made use of various layering and production techniques, including multi-tracking and overdubbed guitar parts.[121]Their emphasis on the sense of dynamics and ensemble arrangement[121] has been seen as producing an individualistic style that transcends any single music genre.[146][147] Ian Peddie argues that they were "... loud, powerful and often heavy, but their music was also humorous, self-reflective and extremely subtle".[148]
The song has three sections, each one progressively increasing in tempo and volume. The song begins in a slow tempo with acoustic instruments (guitar and recorders) before introducing electric instruments. 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."
"Stairway to Heaven" was voted #3 in 2000 by VH1 on its list of the 100 Greatest Rock Songs,[7] and was placed at number 31 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of "The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time". It was the most requested song on FM radio stations in the United States in the 1970s, despite never having been officially released as a single there.[8] In November 2007, through download sales promoting Led Zeppelin's Mothershiprelease, "Stairway to Heaven" hit No. 37 on the UK Singles Chart.[9]
The song originated in 1970 when Jimmy Page and Robert Plant were spending time at Bron-Yr-Aur, a remote cottage in Wales, following Led Zeppelin's fifth American concert tour. According to Page, he wrote the music "over a long period, the first part coming at Bron-Yr-Aur one night".[12] Page always kept a cassette recorder around, and the idea for "Stairway" came together from bits of taped music:[13]
I had these pieces, these guitar pieces, that I wanted to put together. I had a whole idea of a piece of music that I really wanted to try and present to everybody and try and come to terms with. Bit difficult really, because it started on acoustic, and as you know it goes through to the electric parts. But we had various run-throughs [at Headley Grange] where I was playing the acoustic guitar and jumping up and picking up the electric guitar. Robert was sitting in the corner, or rather leaning against the wall, and as I was routining the rest of the band with this idea and this piece, he was just writing. And all of a sudden he got up and started singing, along with another run-through, and he must have had 80% of the words there ... I had these sections, and I knew what order they were going to go in, but it was just a matter of getting everybody to feel comfortable with each gear shift that was going to be coming.[14]
Led Zeppelin bassist John Paul Jones recalled this presentation of the song to him following its genesis at Bron-Yr-Aur:
Page and Plant would come back from the Welsh mountains with the guitar intro and verse. I literally heard it in front of a roaring fire in a country manor house! I picked up a bass recorder and played a run-down riff which gave us an intro, then I moved into a piano for the next section, dubbing on the guitars.[15]
In an interview he gave in 1977, Page elaborated:
I do have the original tape that was running at the time we ran down "Stairway To Heaven" completely with the band. I'd worked it all out already the night before with John Paul Jones, written down the changes and things. All this time we were all living in a house and keeping pretty regular hours together, so the next day we started running it down. There was only one place where there was a slight rerun. For some unknown reason Bonzo couldn't get the timing right on the twelve-string part before the solo. Other than that it flowed very quickly.[10]
The first attempts at lyrics, written by Robert Plant next to an evening log fire at Headley Grange, were partly spontaneously improvised and Page claimed, "a huge percentage of the lyrics were written there and then".[13] Jimmy Page was strumming the chords and Robert Plant had a pencil and paper. Plant later said that suddenly,
My hand was writing out the words, 'There's a lady is sure [sic], all that glitters is gold, and she's buying a stairway to heaven'. I just sat there and looked at them and almost leapt out of my seat." Plant's own explanation of the lyrics was that it "was some cynical aside about a woman getting everything she wanted all the time without giving back any thought or consideration. The first line begins with that cynical sweep of the hand ... and it softened up after that.[16]
The lyrics of the song reflected Plant's current reading. The singer had been poring over the works of the British antiquarian Lewis Spence, and later cited Spence's Magic Arts in Celtic Britain as one of the sources for the lyrics to the song.[11]
In November 1970, Page dropped a hint of the new song's existence to a music journalist in London:
It's an idea for a really long track.... You know how "Dazed and Confused" and songs like that were broken into sections? Well, we want to try something new with the organ and acoustic guitar building up and building up, and then the electric part starts.... It might be a fifteen-minute track.[11]
Page stated that the song "speeds up like an adrenaline flow".[17] He explained:
Going back to those studio days for me and John Paul Jones, the one thing you didn't do was speed up, because if you sped up you wouldn't be seen again. Everything had to be right on the meter all the way through. And I really wanted to write something which did speed up, and took the emotion and the adrenaline with it, and would reach a sort of crescendo. And that was the idea of it. That's why it was a bit tricky to get together in stages.[14]
The complete studio recording was released on Led Zeppelin IV in November 1971. The band's record label, Atlantic Records was keen to issue this track as a single, but the band's manager Peter Grant refused requests to do so in both 1972 and 1973. The upshot of that decision was that record buyers began to invest in the fourth album as if it were a single.[8] In the US, Atlantic issued "Stairway to Heaven" as a 7" promotional single in 1972.
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[18] (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 onfalsetto.
Written in the key of A minor, the song opens with an arpeggiated, finger-picked guitar chord progression with a chromatic descending bassline A-A♭-G-G♭-F. John Paul Jones contributed overdubbed wooden bass recorders in the opening section (he used aMellotron and, later, a Yamaha CP70B Grand Piano and Yamaha GX1 to synthesise this arrangement in live performances)[16] and a Hohner Electra-Piano electric piano in the middle section.
The sections build with more guitar layers, each complementary to the intro, with the drums entering at 4:18. The extended Jimmy Page guitar solo in the song's final section was played for the recording on a 1959 Fender Telecaster given to him by Jeff Beck (an instrument he used extensively with the Yardbirds)[16] plugged into a Suproamplifier,[19] although in an interview he gave to Guitar World magazine, Page also claimed, "It could have been a Marshall, but I can't remember".[13] Three different improvised solos were recorded, with Page agonising about deciding which to keep. Page later revealed, "I did have the first phrase worked out, and then there was the link phrase. I did check them out beforehand before the tape ran." The other guitar parts were played using a HarmonySovereign H1260 acoustic guitar and a Fender Electric XII guitar (a 12-string guitar that was plugged directly to the soundboard); these can be heard on the left and right recording channels respectively. For live versions, Page switched to a Heritage Cherry Gibson EDS-1275 6/12 Doubleneck guitar. The final progression is a i-VII-VI (natural minor) progression (Am-G-F), a mainstay of rock music.
Another interesting aspect of the song is the timing of the lead-up to the famous guitar solo. While staying in 4/4 throughout this section, most of the accents shift to the eight notes. This makes the rhythm figure challenging for some musicians, but adds a feeling of anticipation to the approaching guitar solo.
Sound engineer Andy Johns recalls the circumstances surrounding the recording of Page's famous solo:
I remember Jimmy had a little bit of trouble with the solo on "Stairway to Heaven"... [H]e hadn't completely figured it out. Nowadays you sometimes spend a whole day doing one thing. Back then, we never did that. We never spent a very long time recording anything. I remember sitting in the control room with Jimmy, he's standing there next to me and he'd done quite a few passes and it wasn't going anywhere. I could see he was getting a bit paranoid and so I was getting paranoid. I turned around and said "You're making me paranoid!" And he said, "No, you're making me paranoid!" It was a silly circle of paranoia. Then bang! On the next take or two he ripped it out.[20]
According to Page, "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. Not talking about solos or anything, it had everything there. We were careful never to release it as a single. It was a milestone for us. Every musician wants to do something of lasting quality, something which will hold up for a long time and I guess we did it with "Stairway".[21][Pete] Townshend probably thought that he got it with Tommy. I don't know whether I have the ability to come up with more. I have to do a lot of hard work before I can get anywhere near those stages of consistent, total brilliance.[22]
Over the years, a number of people have put forth the opinion that the song's opening guitar arpeggios bear a close resemblance to the 1968 instrumental "Taurus" by Spirit, which was written by the band's guitarist Randy Wolfe, known as Randy California.[12][23] In the liner notes to the 1996 reissue of Spirit's debut album, Randy California wrote:
People always ask me why "Stairway to Heaven" sounds exactly like "Taurus", which was released two years earlier. I know Led Zeppelin also played "Fresh Garbage" in their live set. They opened up for us on their first American tour.[24][25]
In May 2014, Spirit's bassist Mark Andes, and a trust acting on behalf of Wolfe (who died in 1997), 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 deceased guitarist.[26] A lack of sufficient resources was cited as one of the reasons that Spirit’s members and their survivors did not file the suit earlier. A friend of Wolfe'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 more than US$550 million—will not be part of the settlement, but the publisher and composers may be entitled to a share of the future profits.[27][28]
On 11 April 2016 a Los Angeles district judge, Gary Klausner, ruled that there were enough similarities between the song and an instrumental for a jury to decide the claim and a trial was scheduled for 10 May. The copyright infringement action was brought by Michael Skidmore, a trustee for the late Wolfe.[29]
The inaugural public performance of the song took place at Belfast's Ulster Hall on 5 March 1971.[16] Bassist John Paul Jones recalls that the crowd was unimpressed: "They were all bored to tears waiting to hear something they knew".[17] However, Page stated about an early performance at the LA Forum, before the record had even come out,[30] that:
I'm not saying the whole audience gave us a standing ovation, but there was this sizable standing ovation there. And I thought: 'This is incredible, because no one's heard this number yet. This is the first time they're hearing it!' It obviously touched them, you know. And that was at the L.A. Forum, so I knew we were onto something with that one.[31]
The world radio premiere of "Stairway to Heaven" was recorded at the Paris Cinema on 1 April 1971, in front of a live studio audience, and broadcast three days later on the BBC.[32] The song was performed at almost every subsequent Led Zeppelin concert, only being omitted on rare occasions when shows were cut short for curfews or technical issues. The band's final performance of the song was in Berlin on 7 July 1980, which was also their last concert until 10 Dec 2007 at London's O2 Arena; the version was the longest, lasting almost fifteen minutes, including a seven and a half-minute guitar solo.
Jimmy Page used a double-necked guitar to perform "Stairway to Heaven" live.
When playing the song live, the band would often extend it to over ten minutes, with Page playing an extended guitar solo and Plant adding a number of lyrical ad-libs, such as "Does anybody remember laughter?", "And I think you can see that" (as seen in the film The Song Remains the Same), "Does anybody remember forests?" (As seen on the live performance in Seattle 1977), "wait a minute!" and "I hope so". For performing this song live, Page used a Gibson EDS-1275double neck guitar so he would not have to pause when switching from a six to a twelve string guitar.
By 1975, the song had a regular place as the finale of every Led Zeppelin concert. However, after their concert tour of the United States in 1977, Plant began to tire of "Stairway to Heaven": "There's only so many times you can sing it and mean it ... It just became sanctimonious."[33]
The song was played again by the surviving members of Led Zeppelin at the Live Aid concert in 1985;[16] at the Atlantic Records 40th Anniversary concert in 1988, with Jason Bonham on drums;[34] and by Jimmy Page as an instrumental version on his solo tours.
By the late 1980s, Plant made his negative impression of the song clear in interviews. In 1988, he stated:
I'd break out in hives if I had to sing ("Stairway to Heaven") in every show. I wrote those lyrics and found that song to be of some importance and consequence in 1971, but 17 years later, I don't know. It's just not for me. I sang it at the Atlantic Records show because I'm an old softie and it was my way of saying thank you to Atlantic because I've been with them for 20 years. But no more of "Stairway to Heaven" for me.[35]
However, by the mid-1990s Plant's views had apparently softened. The first few bars were played alone during Page and Plant tours in lieu of the final notes of "Babe I'm Gonna Leave You", and in November 1994 Page and Plant performed an acoustic version of the song at a Tokyo news station for Japanese television. "Stairway to Heaven" was also performed at Led Zeppelin's reunion show at the O2 Arena, London on 10 December 2007. This song is played a whole step lower.
Plant cites the most unusual performance of the song ever as being that performed at Live Aid: "with two drummers (Phil Collins and Tony Thompson) while Duran Duran cried at the side of the stage – there was something quite surreal about that."[16]
"Stairway to Heaven" is often rated among the greatest rock songs of all time.[4][5][6] According to music journalist Stephen Davis, although the song was released in 1971, it took until 1973 before the song's popularity ascended to truly "anthemic" status.[36] As Page himself recalled, "I knew it was good, but I didn't know it was going to be almost like an anthem ... But I knew it was the gem of the album, sure."[37]
"Stairway to Heaven" continues to top radio lists of the greatest rock songs, including a 2006 Guitar World readers poll of greatest guitar solos.[38] On the 20th anniversary of the original release of the song, it was announced via U.S. radio sources that the song had logged up an estimated 2,874,000 radio plays – back to back, that would run for 44 years solid.[8] As of 2000, the song had been broadcast on radio over three million times.[39] In 1990 a St Petersburg, Florida station kicked off its all-Led Zeppelin format by playing "Stairway to Heaven" for 24 hours straight.[40] It is also the biggest-selling single piece of sheet music in rock history, clocking up an average of 15,000 copies yearly.[16] In total, over one million copies have been sold.[39]
The song's length precluded its release in full form as a single.[citation needed] 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. It did, however, appear on two promotional discs in the United States, one of them featuring the 7:55 track on each side, and the other as a 7" 331⁄3 record produced for jukebox operators with "Stairway..." on one side and both "Black Dog" and "Rock And Roll" on the other. Other "single" appearances were on an Australian EP, and in 1991 as an added bonus with a 20th anniversary promo book.
The group's recording of this song also appeared as the sole Led Zeppelin track in the 1977 Atlantic Records 2-LP promotional sampler album, We've Got Your Music, marking the first time that Led Zeppelin's "Stairway to Heaven" made its official debut appearance in an American-released various artists compilation collection.
On the 20th anniversary of the song's release, Esquire magazine featured an article on the song's success and lasting influence. Karen Karbo wrote:[41]
It's doubtful that anyone knew it would become the most popular rock song of all time. After all, it's eight minutes long and was never released as a single. Even "Hey Jude" was shorter, was a 45, and enjoyed the benefits of comprehensible words and a sing-along chorus. But "Hey Jude" isn't the most requested song of all time on FM rock stations. Nobody ever had a "Hey Jude" theme prom or played the song at weddings and funerals like "Stairway". "Stairway" couldn't succeed today. Back in 1971, FM deejays prided themselves on digging deep into albums to come up with oddball, cultish favorites. With its near-oppressive length, erratic changes, and woo-woo lyrics, the quasi-medieval anthem was a perfect choice. It continues to be a favorite among music listeners who are younger than the song itself, listeners who, in some cases, were no doubt conceived while the tune blasted from car speakers.
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.[42] 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".[43]
"Stairway to Heaven" isn't the greatest rock song of the 1970s; it is the greatest spell of the 1970s. Think about it: we are all sick of the thing, but in some primordial way it is still number one. Everyone knows it... Even our dislike and mockery is ritualistic. The dumb parodies; the Wayne's World-inspired folklore about guitar shops demanding customers not play it; even Robert Plant's public disavowal of the song—all of these just prove the rule. "Stairway to Heaven" is not just number one. It is the One, the quintessence, the closest AOR will ever get you to the absolute.
Page has himself commented on the song's legacy:
The wonderful thing about "Stairway" is the fact that just about everybody has got their own individual interpretation to it, and actually what it meant to them at their point of life. And that's what's so great about it. Over the passage of years, you know, people come to me with all manner of stories about, you know, what it meant to them at certain points of their lives. About how it's got them through some really tragic circumstances ... Because it's an extremely positive song, it's such a positive energy, and, you know, people have got married to [the song].[14]
Robert Plant once gave $1,000 to listener-supported radio station KBOO in Portland, Oregon during a pledge drive after the disc jockey solicited donations by promising the station would never play "Stairway to Heaven". Plant was station-surfing in a rental car he was driving to the Oregon Coast after a solo performance in Portland and was impressed with the non-mainstream music the station presented. Asked later "why?" Plant replied that it wasn't that he didn't like the song, but he'd heard it before.[45]
In a January 1982 television program on the Trinity Broadcasting Network hosted by Paul Crouch, it was claimed that hidden messages were contained in many popular rock songs through a technique calledbackmasking. One example of such hidden messages that was prominently cited was in "Stairway to Heaven".[46] The alleged message, which occurs during the middle section of the song ("If there's a bustle in your hedgerow, don't be alarmed now...") when played backward, was purported to contain the Satanic references "Here's to my sweet Satan" and "I sing because I live with Satan."[47]
Following the claims made in the television program, California assemblyman Phil Wyman proposed a state law that would require warning labels on records containing backward masking. In April 1982, the Consumer Protection and Toxic Materials Committee of the California State Assembly held a hearing on backward masking in popular music, during which "Stairway to Heaven" was played backward. During the hearing, William Yarroll, a self-described "neuroscientific researcher", claimed that backward messages could be deciphered by the human brain.[48]
The band itself has for the most part ignored such claims. In response to the allegations, Swan Song Records issued the statement: "Our turntables only play in one direction—forwards." Led Zeppelin audio engineer Eddie Kramer called the allegations "totally and utterly ridiculous. Why would they want to spend so much studio time doing something so dumb?"[49]Robert Plant expressed frustration with the accusations in a 1983 interview in Musician magazine: "To me it's very sad, because 'Stairway to Heaven' was written with every best intention, and as far as reversing tapes and putting messages on the end, that's not my idea of making music."[50]
"Stairway To Heaven"
There's a lady who's sure all that glitters is gold And she's buying a stairway to heaven. When she gets there she knows, if the stores are all closed With a word she can get what she came for. Ooh, ooh, and she's buying a stairway to heaven.
There's a sign on the wall but she wants to be sure 'Cause you know sometimes words have two meanings. In a tree by the brook, there's a songbird who sings, Sometimes all of our thoughts are misgiven.
Ooh, it makes me wonder, Ooh, it makes me wonder.
There's a feeling I get when I look to the west, And my spirit is crying for leaving. In my thoughts I have seen rings of smoke through the trees, And the voices of those who stand looking.
Ooh, it makes me wonder, Ooh, it really makes me wonder.
And it's whispered that soon, if we all call the tune, Then the piper will lead us to reason. And a new day will dawn for those who stand long, And the forests will echo with laughter.
If there's a bustle in your hedgerow, don't be alarmed now, It's just a spring clean for the May queen. Yes, there are two paths you can go by, but in the long run There's still time to change the road you're on. And it makes me wonder.
Your head is humming and it won't go, in case you don't know, The piper's calling you to join him, Dear lady, can you hear the wind blow, and did you know Your stairway lies on the whispering wind?
And as we wind on down the road Our shadows taller than ou"Stairway To Heaven"
There's a lady who's sure all that glitters is gold
And she's buying a stairway to heaven.
When she gets there she knows, if the stores are all closed
With a word she can get what she came for.
Ooh, ooh, and she's buying a stairway to heaven.
There's a sign on the wall but she wants to be sure
'Cause you know sometimes words have two meanings.
In a tree by the brook, there's a songbird who sings,
Sometimes all of our thoughts are misgiven.
Ooh, it makes me wonder,
Ooh, it makes me wonder.
There's a feeling I get when I look to the west,
And my spirit is crying for leaving.
In my thoughts I have seen rings of smoke through the trees,
And the voices of those who stand looking.
Ooh, it makes me wonder,
Ooh, it really makes me wonder.
And it's whispered that soon, if we all call the tune,
Then the piper will lead us to reason.
And a new day will dawn for those who stand long,
And the forests will echo with laughter.
If there's a bustle in your hedgerow, don't be alarmed now,
It's just a spring clean for the May queen.
Yes, there are two paths you can go by, but in the long run
There's still time to change the road you're on.
And it makes me wonder.
Your head is humming and it won't go, in case you don't know,
The piper's calling you to join him,
Dear lady, can you hear the wind blow, and did you know
Your stairway lies on the whispering wind?
And as we wind on down the road
Our shadows taller than our soul.
There walks a lady we all know
Who shines white light and wants to show
How everything still turns to gold.
And if you listen very hard
The tune will come to you at last.
When all are one and one is all
To be a rock and not to roll.
And she's buying a stairway to heaven.
r soul. There walks a lady we all know Who shines white light and wants to show How everything still turns to gold. And if you listen very hard The tune will come to you at last. When all are one and one is all To be a rock and not to roll.
Far from a typical biography, Case’s book jumps in a dizzying but wonderful way across years and topics to explore the band’s work from every perspective possible. As Case explains, “I started off as a fan, but I wanted to write more than just the traditional fan biography. I wanted to dig a little more into the whole cultural background of what Zeppelin was doing when they were actually an active group.”
This is partially done to debunk the sometimes erroneous legends that have surrounded the band over the years: “There seems to have been a mythology put onto them since they broke up, and the fan community has read so much into the music and the album covers and what the band was doing, and when you go back to the actual interviews of what they said they were doing it, they’re actually a lot more off-hand about it than people might suspect.”
Which makes a lot of sense, given the band’s schedule at the time. “Those first four albums were made in less than two years, so obviously they were working at a really fast pace. They didn’t have time to think about everything they were doing and try to come up with a reasoning for why they made the songs, or what they put on the album covers. So, I was trying to remind the readers about that, that a lot of this was more haphazard than it seems to be in retrospect.”
It’s a fantastic read and we highly suggest you check out the book – and of course, this list of 10 Things You Didn’t Know About Led Zeppelin IV, as we celebrate the album’s arrival on Nov. 8, 1971.
1. They had a good reason for not including their name or faces on the cover. “The cover wasn’t meant to antagonize the record company,” Jimmy Page told reporter Brad Tolinksi in 2001. “It was designed as our response to the music critics who maintained that the success of our first three albums was driven by hype and not talent. … So, we stripped everything away, and let the music do the talking.”
2. The opening sounds of “Black Dog” are a byproduct of studio technology. As Case explains, “Page did a lot of overdubbing, so when you’ve got three separate tracks of guitars to be played together, they have to get synched. It’s the sound of the tape rolling. He could have cut it out. It’s just them getting lined up from the separate takes and all.” Instead, the guitarist left them in, thinking it sounded like “the massing of the guitar armies.”
3. Robert Plant‘s the only one moving at normal speed on “When the Levee Breaks.” Much has been made of the Headley Grange stairwell that helped capture that massive “Levee” drum sound: “People wonder how that sounds so planetary, but there was a natural echo there, and then they put more on it. They also slowed it down in the mix so it sounded really booming, had this huge reverb to it. It’s almost physical when you listen to it.” In fact, “The only sound on ‘When the Levee Breaks’ that’s recorded in natural time is Plant’s voice. Everything else is slowed down just a little bit to make it really heavy.”
4. If you had to pick the least popular song on the album, it would probably be “Four Sticks.” Although he’s quick to label it “a very tough call,” Case mentions in the book that the rhythmically tricky “Four Sticks” is probably the least essential of all the songs on IV. “I don’t think it’s bad at all, but I think of all the songs on the record it’s the least listenable.” Perhaps the band agrees: “Seven of the eight songs from that album are on their 1990 box set, and ‘Four Sticks’ was the one that didn’t make it. Compared to the other tracks on there, it just doesn’t stand out as much.”
5. The album was recorded in several different places. When discussing the recording of IV, the reportedly haunted house known as Headley Grange comes up, but big parts of the record were recorded at places like Island Studios and Sunset Sound. “Headley Grange is the one that gets known, because it’s a spooky house and that’s really cool. That’s where ‘When the Levee Breaks’ was recorded, in that echoey stairwell. But they did use a lot of other studios, too. Headley was not professional enough. They had Ronnie Lane‘s mobile outside, but Page was saying they had to go into a real studio for what they were doing.”
Listen to Led Zeppelin Perform ‘When the Levee Breaks’
6. The band realized they needed to start crediting their lyrical inspirations. Led Zeppelin has taken much grief from blues fans for heavily relying on lyrics from other artists in their earlier work, and it seems the degree of this “borrowing” is still being realized. “One thing I didn’t even mention in the book, that I heard just recently, I was listening to Count Basie, and he has a song called ‘Going to Chicago’ – “Sorry that I can’t take you.” So, obviously Plant was getting into that at the end of ‘Levee.’ So, all the lyrics were taken from Memphis Minnie, except for that little bit of Basie at the end. By that point, by IV, I think they knew it was too obvious, that they couldn’t take someone else’s song and all the credit for it, so they snuck her name on it at the end.”
7. Contrary to rumors, there are no backwards messages on “Stairway to Heaven.” “It sounds cool; it’s a great legend – but all that is just something that’s been thrown at it from long after the record was done. It wasn’t until the ’80s, after Zeppelin broke up, that these ideas started getting aired in public. It had to do with the religious backlash that happened in those days, people were reading satanic messages into Dungeons and Dragons. This was just one more target for them. The band did use backwards sounds, for the aural effect, but they weren’t trying to put any messages on there.”
8. They weren’t the first to name a song “Stairway to Heaven.” They were beaten to that title, if not by others before him, by none other than pop crooner Neil Sedaka – who included his own song by that exact same name on his 1960 album Neil Sedaka Sings Little Devil and His Other Hits, taking it all the way to No. 9 on the charts.
9. There could have been more than eight songs on IV. Led Zeppelin had a habit of holding onto material until they deemed it ready, for years sometimes. Many of the songs from 1975’s Physical Graffiti were actually recorded as far back as the III sessions. “Boogie with Stu” from Graffiti originally came from the IV sessions, as did “Black Country Woman.”
10. The symbols the band chose for themselves on the album art don’t mean as much as you might think. “They were put together pretty hastily, people have read so much into them over the years. When you get down to it, it sounds like John Paul Jones and John Bonham just said, ‘Oh, we’ll pick these, you know, sure, whatever,’ they weren’t that interested. Robert Plant picked the feather in the circle from some mystical account of some lost civilization that probably never existed. It was one of those hippie things that they thought was out there. Page’s “Zoso,” goes way back to the renaissance, really, but basically it’s a representation of Capricorn from a document dating back the 1500s. In those days, the way people drew astrological symbols was a lot more elaborate than just scales or fish, but it does derive from a symbol for Saturn, or for Capricorn. It’s nothing satanic or anything like that.”
This page was created in an attempt to explain the meanings of the symbols above, found on the untitled fourth album, better known as Led Zeppelin IV or Zoso. The album was never really meant to have a name, a fact which the recording companies considered "commercial suicide".
"We decided the album couldn't be called Led Zeppelin IV. Each of us decided to choose a metaphysical symbol which represented us individually." Robert Plant
John Bonham's Symbol
Several guesses have been made as to the meaning of John Bonham's symbol, the three interlocking circles. The most accepted interpretation is that it symbolizes the relationship of the man, woman, and child. I believe that this was confirmed by John's son Jason not too long ago. Other suggestions have been presented, some are more interesting than others. It has been said that sometimes while John Bonham was having a drink, he would make interlocking rings from water that dripped off of the bottle. Also, it has been suggested that Bonham just liked the way the three rings reminded him of a drum set. Robert Plant observed that it was the emblem of Ballantine Beer.
John Paul Jones's Symbol
Jones's symbol has been seen on the cover of a book about the Rosicrucians, a religious cult in the middle ages which was of some interest to Aleister Crowley and his fellow members of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, such as Westcott.
Jimmy Page's Symbol
No one really knows for sure what Jimmy Page's symbol means. The most recent theory that seeks to explain it has it that it that it symbolizes a near-death or Tantric sex experience to unify the worlds of the living and the dead, and thus to reveal the secrets of the universe. A post on the mailing list said that a symbol very similar to Jimmy Page's was found in the book "The Collected Works, Volume 1" by Aleister Crowley. I can't remember the page number, it was either 143 or 345. I myself haven't gotten around to checking on this, but I plan to soon.
There are a few points that are worth clarifying.
It is not a word that can be prounounced "Zoso".
The symbol was designed by Jimmy, and the only person he has revealed its meaning to was Plant, long ago, and he has since forgotten. Nigel Eaton, hurdy gurdy player on the Page & Plant world tour was reported in "Q" as having asked about it and been greeted with a deathly silence.
It is unlikely to symbolize Cerebus, the guardian hound at the gates of hell.
It is not a stylizied "666".
The closest thing to an explanation from the man himself came on his November 1994 appearance on "Denton" with Plant. At the end of their interview a member of the studio audience yelled "What's your symbol mean Jimmy?" After some confusion as to what was being yelled, understanding dawned on Plant's face and he replied "Frying tonight". Page did not elaborate further.
It most likely has absoluely nothing to do with Curious George The Monkey, known as Zoso, a character in English children's books.
It has nothing to do with the pyramid of Zoser in Egypt.
Robert Plant's Symbol
Robert Plant's symbol uses the feather of Ma'at, the Egyptian goddess of justice and fairness. It is the emblem of a writer. In the past Plant has said that it comes from the ancient Mu civilization.
