Fifty years of Led Zeppelin's Stairway to Heaven — the epic all epics are measured against

By Matt Neal for the ABC

A long-haired rock fan picks up a guitar in a music store and goes to strum a particular voicing of an A minor chord, but he's stopped by an angry staff member.

The employee points at a sign reading "No Stairway to Heaven", and Mike Myers, as his popular Saturday Night Live character Wayne, looks down the barrel of the camera and utters the iconic line, "No 'Stairway'? Denied!"

Led Zeppelin's rock epic was only 21 years old when this scene from the 1992 hit comedy Wayne's World was released, but already the reputation of the song was evident - that this much-loved guitar classic had been played to death.

In fact, the scene was reportedly based on a real sign that was beginning to pop up in American music stores around that time.

'Stairway to Heaven' is now 50 years old and continues to enjoy/endure its much-loved/overplayed status, something all the more remarkable when you consider it was never released as a commercial single and that it clocks in at eight minutes long, or more than twice the length of your typical radio track.

'Sometimes words have two meanings...'

The song was believed to have been written in a Welsh cottage named Bron-Y-Aur, where Led Zeppelin members Robert Plant and Jimmy Page (along with their partners and a couple of roadies) retreated after gruelling back-to-back European and North American tours in early 1970.

The story of this song being written in the Welsh hills in a cottage with no running water or electricity or toilet has become part of the Led Zeppelin legend.

However, under oath during the song's recent copyright tussles (more on that later), Page revealed it was actually written at the less romantic Headley Grange, a former workhouse-turned-recording studio south-west of London - a disclosure that no doubt disappointed the thousands of Led Zeppelin fans who made the pilgrimage to western Wales to visit "the birthplace of 'Stairway to Heaven'".

The song was recorded over the winter of 1970-71 as part of the sessions for the band's technically untitled fourth album - better known as Led Zeppelin IV.

Plant recalled sitting by the fire with Page to write the lyrics in the freezing cold, run-down Headley Grange.

"I was holding a pencil and paper, and for some reason I was in a very bad mood," Plant recalled years later, according to Mick Wall's exhaustive band biography When Giants Walked the Earth.

"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 leapt out of my seat."

The band was impressed enough to include the lyrics on the inner sleeve of the album - the first time Led Zeppelin had done so.

'All that glitters is gold...'

The song and the album were released on November 8, 1971, but the band had been playing the eight-minute epic live since March of that year to a somewhat underwhelming response, as the band's bassist/keyboardist John Paul Jones recalled.

"They were all bored to tears waiting to hear something they knew," Jones told the BBC.

That response changed once the album came out, and Atlantic Records repeatedly begged Led Zeppelin to release it as a single, but the band refused.

"'Stairway to Heaven' was never, ever, ever going to be released as a single," Page told Mick Wall.

"The whole thing was we wanted people to hear it in the context of the album.

"I said it will help the album sell because it's not a single (and) I knew the minute it was a single, the next thing they would want it to be an edited version, and I wasn't having that, no way."

The ploy worked and Led Zeppelin IV became one of the biggest selling albums ever - in America it's one of only six albums to sell more than 20 million copies, and worldwide certified sales put it as the fifth biggest-selling record of all time.

Atlantic Records sent promo copies of 'Stairway to Heaven' to American radio stations, which lapped up the track despite its monumental length.

It's all the more remarkable when you consider the song's contents - it has no conventional chorus, it opens with a medieval-sounding combination of recorders and acoustic guitar, the vocals don't start until almost one minute into the song, the drums don't join in until more than four minutes in, and the last two and a half minutes feel like a completely different song.

But radio DJs loved it, and so did the listeners.

'There's a songbird who sings...'

It was on AM radio in Australia that a young Ash Naylor first heard 'Stairway to Heaven,' long before he became frontman for Melbourne band Even and go-to-guitarist for the likes of Paul Kelly, The Church and various Beatles and Led Zeppelin tributes, among others.

Naylor recalls being 11 and taping Led Zeppelin songs off the radio, before eventually buying Led Zeppelin IV on cassette, followed by the sheet music for 'Stairway to Heaven.'

"I didn't realise that the sheet music was for beginner guitar ... so the chord shapes on the sheet music were open chords down in the first and second fret, they weren't the barre chords that Jimmy Page would play on the recording," he said.

Disillusioned by the sheet music, Naylor began figuring it out himself. He first performed the song at a high school talent show in the mid-'80s, and more recently as part of semi-regular Led Zeppelin tribute shows around Australia.

"I've probably listened to this song for the best part of 40 years ... but every time I listen to the song, I (find) something new about the song that just intrigues me and just captivates me," he said.

"Obviously the Telecaster solo cuts a swathe through that dense scrubland of beautiful electric 12-strings, but those double-tracked Fender electric 12-strings that Jimmy Page put on that song is one of the most creamy, intoxicating sounds ever committed to tape.

"And every time I hear it, it makes me feel like I've just taken a musical Valium."

'The piper will lead us to reason...'

In 2004, a music panel assembled by Rolling Stone magazine voted 'Stairway to Heaven' as #31 on a list of the greatest songs of all time, declaring that "all epic anthems must measure themselves against 'Stairway to Heaven'".

It was the latest accolade for a song that regularly tops radio and magazine countdowns of the greatest rock songs ever.

Around the same time, New York guitarist Steph Paynes was rediscovering Led Zeppelin, finding it "amazingly refreshing" after years of playing jazz, pop, punk and grunge.

It made her yearn to play "heavy, guitar-oriented rock 'n' roll."

"(I thought) why not just indulge my fantasy and put a group together and play Led Zeppelin music for fun," Paynes explained.

"And then I thought it'd be much more fun if it were all girls."

The all-female tribute band Lez Zeppelin was born. It's still going strong and touring the world 17 years later and has even won the approval of Jimmy Page himself.

But when Lez Zeppelin were putting their first setlists together back in 2004, 'Stairway to Heaven' wasn't on the list.

"It's probably one of the greatest songs ever, but playing it, it's almost cliched," Paynes said.

"It's hard to do because it could so easily be sappy (so) we steered away from it for the first six or seven years.

"We would go to Germany, and people would be like, 'you're very great, but why are you not playing 'Stairway'?'.

"But also, 'Stairway', to play it right, honestly, it's near impossible.

"It can be done; we've done it a couple of times.

"I'm not even talking about (playing) the right notes - I'm talking about the way that song just has to begin and build in the middle and then be absolutely glorious at the end.

"The thing that's greatest about it is the compositional brilliance of it - the layers start to come on and the lyrics start to get more sparkling and the whole thing builds in a beautifully compositional way so that by the end of it you've reached a different level.

"I think the whole thing is (a) near-perfect song of its type. It's not just the guitar playing or the vocals or the message.

"It's the way the whole thing holds together and works as a composition."

'And it makes me wonder...'

'Stairway to Heaven,' unlike most songs, seems to pop up in the news every few years, helping to keep it fresh in people's minds.

In 1982, two years after the band broke up in the wake of drummer John Bonham's death, Christian televangelists in America began to claim the song contained secret Satanic messages that could be heard when the record was played backwards.

Led Zeppelin was an easy target - the band had helped create the stereotype of "sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll".

The use of narcotics in the band was rife, Bonham drank himself to death, and the band was renowned for their contingent of groupies, which spawned the infamous "mud shark" incident and Page's disturbing relationship with a teenage girl.

On top of that Page was renowned for his interest in the occult and mysticism, particularly the works of controversial occultist Aleister Crowley.

While the backmasking claims were denied (and patently ridiculous), they persisted. As recently as 2004, an author Thomas W Friend wrote a detailed analysis of the secret Satanic messages hidden within Led Zeppelin IV.

Equally persistent were the allegations of plagiarism.

Led Zeppelin has more than 20 songs in their back catalogue "that consisted, in whole or part, of pre-existing songs, melodies, or lyrics", as Wikipedia puts it.

While these pre-existing pieces have sometimes been credited, other times they haven't, and have resulted in lawsuits.

'Stairway to Heaven''s likeness to the song 'Taurus' by Californian band Spirit - a group Led Zeppelin toured with - had been discussed as far back as the 70s and was mentioned in the liner notes of a Spirit album re-issue in 1996, but it didn't hit the courts until 2014.

The matter was eventually resolved in favour of Led Zeppelin in 2020, in a ruling that rewrote US copyright law, as well as putting the song back in the news.

'And as we wind on down the road...'

Led Zeppelin reunions after John Bonham's death have been few and far between, but the question of "will they play 'Stairway'?" always accompanies the gig.

This is partly due to Robert Plant's apparent ambivalence towards the song - he donated $US10,000 to a radio station in Portland, Oregon if they promised never to play the song again.

'Stairway to Heaven' was a lowlight in a disastrous reunion set for Live Aid in 1985. It was also at the heart of a massive band argument prior to their performance at a 1988 gig to mark the 40th anniversary of Atlantic Records - the band, which included John Bonham's son Jason on drums, wanted to play 'Stairway,' Plant did not.

The last time Led Zeppelin played live, again with Jason Bonham on drums, was at the O2 Arena in London in December 2007 at a concert to honour the passing of Ahmet Ertegun, founder of Atlantic Records and friend of the band.

To the surprise of Page and Jones, Plant agreed to play 'Stairway' - buried in the middle of the set - despite having spent the previous 30 years trying to hide from the song.

Paynes, who was at the O2 gig, said "everyone was waiting for 'Stairway'".

"But, honestly, it wasn't the high point," she said.

'And she's buying a stairway to heaven...'

Ash Naylor said the song refuses to die, despite new waves of musical trends over the past 50 years temporarily rendering sweeping rock epics "obsolete".

"It's such a wonderful piece of music that it's always going to be discovered by some new generation," he said.

"It's plaintive, it's heraldic, and it's poignant.

"I think Jimmy Page says himself that it sort of crystallizes everything Zeppelin was about - it's got folk, it's got melody, it's got power, it's got a blazing solo, it's got one of the best drum tracks ever committed to tape, and it's got the secret weapon of John Paul Jones on keyboards, bass, and recorder."

Paynes agreed, saying that as long as Led Zeppelin are still considered one of the all-time great bands, 'Stairway to Heaven' will hold its place among the important rock songs.

"It's a defining moment in Led Zeppelin's trajectory - it marks the apex of their career," she said.

"There's so much brilliant, amazing stuff (in their back catalogue) that it would be limiting to just look at 'Stairway' as 'the thing' that Led Zeppelin did, but it's really a special piece in their canon."

She described the song as a victim of its own success.

"'Stairway' is a bit like the Mona Lisa," Paynes said.

"You go to the Louvre and it's this little picture, but you go up to it, and you think you've seen it a million times.

"And then you will look at it again, in front of you, in the flesh as it were, in the paint, and you can't believe how good it is."

- ABC

Read the full story on the ABC here.