Re Led Zeppelin’s “Stairway To Heaven” it’s a good song with intriguing lyrics, but for many people, even today, it’s one of the best songs ever written in the history of the universe.
I really have to ask what makes this song all that?
Re Led Zeppelin's "Stairway To Heaven" Why do so many people think this is the "OMG Best Ever" song?
Drugs. Lots of drugs.
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Because it does a marvelous job of building and releasing tension.
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Because heavy metal was still relatively new when LZ’s fourth album was released, and the style was still fresh and even startling. The genre has been around for more than forty years now, and it’s a lot harder to make that big a splash.
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That said, the classic rock stations really should give it a rest. We don’t need to hear it every hour on the hour or even every day. Honestly. It doesn’t matter how good a song (or a recipe, a painting, a novel, or anything else) maybe, sooner or later you’re going to get tired of it. Give it a rest already, so maybe someday we can actually enjoy it again.
It has all the positives: great guitar licks, great lyrics/story, danceable, and long. It’s not my favorite rock song, but it’s in my top 10.
It is a great song. It isn’t quite so wonderful after several thousand listenings.
IMO, the best song is “Shine on you Crazy Diamond”, all parts combined.
Also - do I remember correctly that “Hotel California” was voted the best song of the 20th century?
I think at this point it’s momentum, peer pressure and reputation. It’s been revered as this almighty rock anthem for so long, no one wants to be the one to not say it’s the greatest rock song of all time in the history of the universe.
This. For some reason, the classic rock stations around here got on a kick of playing Pink Floyd, especially cuts from The Wall. I might not live long enough to ever enjoy any songs from The Wall again.
In addition to having a story to it, it also helps that the story is rather cryptic, providing fodder for many discussions of what it really means. It does a very good job of straddling the divide between “obvious nonsense” and “clear meaning”.
I don’t know that it’s great musically, but it works well, and it’s significantly more ambitious than anything Led Zeppelin or any other well-known rockers had done before. The other thing that it has going for it is that the lyrics sound really deep, but they’re vague enough that there’s a lot of room for the listener to interpret them.
(Also, you should listen to this.)
Pretty cool. I thought you were going to link to this.
I’m surprised nobody has yet linked to this.
Thank you! Just the other day I was going to post a pit thread tittled: Dear classic radio station: Led Zeppelin is not the be all end all of classic rock!!
Seriously, I have like a ten minute commute to work. Hardly a day goes by when I go to work and I DON’T hear a LZ song. Jeez! just give it a rest already!
It is a good song. Not my favorite song by Led Zeppelin, but as others have said it really does get tiresome after hearing it all the time. I stopped listening to our local classic rock station when they went corporate. Jut recently I actually was able to listen to Stairway to Heaven with “fresh” ears for the first time in a very long time.
Same for “Born to be Wild” by Steppenwolf and “Smoke on the Water” by Deep Purple. I think a good 20 year moratorium on those songs should help. It’s not like there isn’t thousands of good songs to choose from.
“Stairway to Heaven” was the theme of my prom in the late '70’s so of course it’s the greatest song of all time. Well, at least it was to a group of snobby prom committee members and they have to be right…right?
I can think of several reasons:
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It’s a pretty good song, and there will never be a song so good that it’s everybody’s favorite.
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It was played so often that lots of people are bound to associate it with good memories, especially involving sex with someone much hotter than you could ever do today.
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The lyrics are very clear, so it’s easy to sing along with. Yet they are just confusing enough to sound profound.
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Likewise, the guitar lead of most of it is pretty easy to play, and eminently recognizable, so even rank amateurs can have more fun with it than with most classic rock.
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It was by a hard rock group, and had a hard rock section, so manly men aren’t embarrassed to admit they like it. As opposed to, say, a Carpenters song.
It’s definitely a great song. Back when it came out and I was in college, I had a roommate who hated Led Zeppelin. We told him that he’d still like “Stairway.” To be cruel, we played the entire first side of the album; after each song, he’d say, disgustedly, “Was that it?” Finally, we got to the song. He loved it.
What makes it musically interesting is the pacing. If you notice, the song starts off on a leisurely beat, but slowly and subtly goes faster and faster until almost the end, when it goes back for the final phrase. The instrumentation also changes subtly, starting with just a voice and acoustic guitar, then adding instruments to become hard rock.
Around here, about the only Floyd I hear on the radio is Money. Enough so that when they do play some other Floyd song, it’s practically notable.
And yes, Stairway need to be retired/banned from public airwaves for about 10 years. Actually, most of the now-“Classic Rock” era songs need to be given a much deserved rest. IMO.