THE TRUE STORY: Led Zeppelin's "Stairway to Heaven" 

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".  Page always kept a cassette recorder around, and the idea for "Stairway" came together from bits of taped music.

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 routinizing 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. 

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"... He 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.



 JIMMY PAGE 

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"! 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.

ROBERT PLANT 

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 softies 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.

STAIRWAY TO HEAVEN

"Stairway to Heaven" is often rated among the greatest rock songs of all time. 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. 

JIMMY PAGE 

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."

ROBERT PLANT

The lyrics came to Robert Plant in a flash of inspiration when he and Jimmy Page were sitting by the fireplace at Headley Grange with Page strumming the intro chords. 

"I was holding a pencil and paper, and for some reason I was in a very bad mood. Then all of a sudden my hand was writing out the words, 'There's a lady who's sure all that glitters is gold/And she's buying a stairway to heaven.' I just sat there and looked at the words and then I almost jumped out of my seat."

DID THE DEVIL HAVE ROLE IN CREATING THE SONG?Plant's implication that something else was moving his pencil for him led to speculation that it was Satan who was dictating the words, and along with the backward messages and Page's Aleister Crowley connection, there was enough evidence for many listeners that the devil had some role in creating this song.

This is rumored to contain backward satanic messages, as if Led Zeppelin sold their souls to the devil in exchange for "Stairway To Heaven." Supporting this theory is the fact that Jimmy Page bought Aleister Crowley's house in Scotland, known as Boleskine House. In his books, Crowley advocated that his followers learn to read and speak backwards.

Robert Plant addressed the issue in an interview with Musician magazine: "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. It's really sad. the first time I heard it was early in the morning when I was living at home, and I heard it on a news program. I was absolutely drained all day. I walked around, and I couldn't actually believe, I couldn't take people seriously who could come up with sketches like that. There are a lot of people who are making money there, and if that's the way they need to do it, then do it without my lyrics. I cherish them far too much." 

STAIRWAY TO HEAVEN 
Led Zeppelin - Stairway to Heaven Live
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Q7Vr3yQYWQ

Stairway To Heaven is 8:03 long, in spite of that it has become  one of the most-played songs on American radio, proving that people wouldn't tune out just because a song was long. 

It was a perfect fit for FM radio, which was a newer format challenging the established AM with better sound quality and more variety. "Stairway To Heaven" fit nicely into what was called the "Album Oriented Rock" format, and later became a staple of Classic Rock. 

By most measures, it is the most-played song in the history of American FM radio. It has also sold more sheet music than any other rock song - about 10,000 to 15,000 copies a year, and more than one million total.

Jimmy Page has a strong affinity for this song, and felt Robert Plant's lyrics were his best yet. He had him write all of Zeppelin's lyrics from then on. 

In an interview with Rolling Stone magazine (March 13, 1975) the interviewer, Cameron Crowe, asked Jimmy Page how important "Stairway To Heaven" was to him: Page replied: "To me, I thought 'Stairway' 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. 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."

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JIMMY PAGE: HOW STAIRWAY TO HEAVEN WAS WRITTEN - BBC NEWS
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DDo4CA13LbY

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ROBERT PLANT ON WRITING LED ZEPPELIN'S "STAIRWAY TO HEAVEN" 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H5Px_6bNtLo

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