What’s the story behind Led Zeppelin’s “Stairway to Heaven?”
http://www.straightdope.com/columns/030425.html
This too is one of my favorite songs. I have always felt there was something behind it, but could never put my finger on it. At different times in my life the song seemed to call out to me a different message. Now, over 40 years of listening and reflecting I have come to find a “purpose” of S2H. (Side bar, Led Zeppelin called it a” Wedding Song” and didn’t like playing it after awhile)
Give me a little room here and try to ‘think out of the box’ for a second.
One of the strongest feelings that exist is the” Love” a mother has for her child. This might be a leap, and I know there are some non-believers out there, BUT……the “She” as in “She’s buying a Stairway to Heaven” is reference to Jesus dying on the cross. A Jacobs’s ladder of sorts. It is Jesus who “bought” the stairway for all believers to ascend into Heaven.
What greater Love is there than the Love of Jesus for you, my friend.
Now, my other stretch is the album cover of IV (by the way stairway is #4 on the LP ) showing a man with a bundle of sticks on his back, ie a man with a wooden cross Via Delorosa. (The way of Suffering, the way of the Cross) http://www.ledzeppelin.com/site_flash/fs_discography.html
Try and listen for the’ whisper’en wind’ and maybe ‘the song will come to you at last….’
And with these words he breathed his last…….verse. “And She’s buying a Stairway to Heaven………….”
It is finished.
“All is one and one is ALL”
Together, Again!
[QUOTE=tinman]
What’s the story behind Led Zeppelin’s “Stairway to Heaven?”
http://www.straightdope.com/columns/030425.html
This might be a leap, and I know there are some non-believers out there, BUT……the “She” as in “She’s buying a Stairway to Heaven” is reference to Jesus dying on the cross.
One of my favorite lines:
“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.”
I say it is blatantly about drug abuse, and if anyone wants to debate that I’ll do so later after I come back from work. As for that column by Cecil, it is truly one of his lamest. The problem is that without citing what the songwriter said about its meaning, or at least what someone credible who was close to the band said the songwriter commented it was about, we are just speculating.
I happen to run 2 websites about the dangers and possible benefits of drug use. I don’t mean to suggest that drugs are all the lyrics of this song are about. Just that drugs are a part.
“Your head is humming and it won’t go because you don’t know
The piper’s calling you to join him
Dear lady can’t you hear the wind blow and did you know
Your stairway lies on the whispering wind”
I’ve always assumed it was about love lost to drugs, either literally or figuratively; along the lines of the more blatant, Needle and the Damage Done (Neil Young) or Cold Blue Steel and Sweet Fire (Joni Mitchell)
The “bustle in your hedgerow” would be those moments of sobriety that often frighten the heavy user.
This interpretation seems plausible. I also think the theory that the lyrics are basically hippy gibberish has merit. Plant may have just slapped together the song quickly, without trying for a deep meaning.
There is no doubt that all of us who listened to this song were compelled to listen to it. It is haunting. There is a reason why. Could it be that the glittering lady is an angel? “If there is a bustle in your hedgerow…Clean by the may Queen.” If your piece of mind is disturbed…it will be restored by something pure.
Okay…this song is about unity…standing as one… making good choses…The piper?? O.K.(oll Korrect) someone mentioned jesus…yep think so. As for humming in your head??? Your own voices! Piper again is calling…I think somehow this is some reference to revelations…maybe a stretch…but I’ll throw it on the table. You cannot deny that even at the end when you loved the tune…it disturbed your inner peace some how? HMMM “And if you listen very hard:the tune will come to you at last:when all is one and one is all:to be rock and not to roll:And she’s buying the stairway to heaven”…When we have united and love…she earns heaven. Okay my brain hurts. But it is good poetry. Not drug induced mumble.