Stairway to Heaven = Galadriel

Cecil's Columns/Staff Reports
1

Since Stairway to Heaven came up in rotation today, there’s a theory floating around the interwebs these days that, like in Battle for Evermore, Led Zeppelin is taking us to Hobbitland again with Stairway to Heaven:

  1. The Lady is Galadriel, looking to get back to the undying lands that have left the earth (so you have to climb via a ship to get there).

  2. “All that glitters”: The poem directly cited in LOTR as applying to Aragorn. Galadriel isn’t ready to believe in him yet, so she still thinks all that glitters is gold. May also be related to her golden hair.

  3. ** “Bustle in the hedgerow - Spring Clean for the May Queen”**: Little Hobbits cleaning up the mess in middle earth, the Ring was destroyed as a prelude to springtime (purposeful symbolism by Tolkien), May Queen is Arawen who will ascend.

  4. “When I look to the west - spirit is crying for leaving”: really obvious, many characters long for the Undying Lands in the West.

  5. “Rings of smoke through the trees: voices of those who stand looking”: Gandalf, pipe-weed, and conferring with Ents.

  6. The Piper: pipe = pipeweed = Gandalf leading us to reason.

  7. “Lady shines white light and wants to show how everything still turns to gold”: The elf-lords shining is a clear image from the books, and “still turns to gold” may reference her gift to Sam (the dust that made the Shire grow, including hobbits born with golden hair).

  8. ** “To be a rock is not to roll”**: Gandalf says of Bombadil: “he is a moss-gatherer, and I am a rolling stone”.

Well of course, this probably goes firmly in the “you can fit any theory you want into the lyrics”, but this one is more compelling than many, especially given the very direct references Led Zeppelin uses elsewhere. Anyway, I like it!

2

So of course, in digging deeper, this may have started in a 2002 Straight Dope thread, nothing to see here move along… :smack:

3

I think the Teleri wound disagree with you on some points.

4

Who am I to argue with a wound?

5

I don’t think this is compelling at all.

1/ this is doublethink. You don’t go up stairs to get to the undying lands. Doesn’t fit at all

2/ Your comment doesn’t make sense. If Galadriel isn’t ready to believe in Aragorn yet then she would not think that all that glitters is gold. She would think that all that glitters is not gold.

3/ Hobbits don’t live in hedgerows. Desperate reaching

4/ This line fits. There’s no doubt that LZ were into LotR at the time. But it doesn’t fit with the Galadriel theory since it’s the singer of the song who’s looking to the west, not the “Lady”

5/ Could be anything, has nothing to do with Galadriel

6/ Gandalf didn’t lead he meddled. Doesn’t have anything to do with Galadriel

7/ The idea that everything turns to gold is not a philosophy compatible with Galadriel who was quite melancholy.

8/ Could be anything, the idea that a rolling stone gathers no moss is older than LotR

Overall, a real stretch.

6

I’ve noticed that “Stairway to Heaven” was published long before THE TRUTH of Galadriel’s murderous ways were revealed, Queen of the Kinslayers indeed. We should be able to forgive Led Zeppelin’s complicity in the hobbits’ genetic engineering of their “Longbottom Leaf” to make tobacco more addictive. Hindsight is 20/20 as they say …