Composed by Led Zeppelin's Jimmy Page and Robert Plant at the dawn of the 1970s, "Stairway To Heaven" quickly became the band's signature song, and a permanent fixture on FM radio playlists for decades to come.
Built around Page's folkish acoustic guitar progression, the recording of the song started in 1970 and was completed the following year with the addition of Plant's fanciful lyrics during recording sessions for the legendary Led Zeppelin IV album. The album was released in November 1971, on Atlantic Records, and "Stairway To Heaven" quickly became a staple
of Led Zeppelin's live shows, and remained so until the band's last official performance in Berlin in 1980.
The band reunited and performed the song (with Jason Bonham, son of deceased drummer John Bonham, behind the drum kit) for Bob Geldof's Live Aid charity extravaganza in 1984, and once again in 2007 at the much-heralded Led Zeppelin reunion show at the O2 Arena in London, England.
"Stairway To Heaven" remains the most requested and most played song in the history of FM radio in the United States, with record-setting sheet music sales to match. This is an extraordinary feat, especially when one considers that the song was never actually released as a single. The song's running length (8:02) certainly precluded it from being a traditional 45 rpm single release, and being concerned with maintaining the artistic integrity of the composition, the band's management consistently refused to allow it to be released in an edited form.
Viewed literally, the stairway to heaven reference would seem to suggest a Biblical allusion to an actual ladder ascending to heaven. It is, after all, an often-used theme in literature and song, but Plant's lyrical approach in many of his songs tends to be more shadowy and metaphorical. So, when the opening line, "There's a lady who's sure all that glitters is gold, and she's buying a stairway to heaven," is considered in conjunction with a phrase like, " 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," it would appear that the song is perhaps a thinly veiled commentary on the spiritual futility of a life based on materialism, as compared to one taking a righteous path, presumably to enlightenment.
It's known that at the time, Plant's literary influences tended toward the mystical and magical. Indeed, several Led Zeppelin songs included direct references to J.R.R. Tolkien's "Lord Of The Rings," and Plant himself has also stated that Lewis Spence's "Magic Arts in Celtic Britain," was an influence on the lyrics of this song. The wordplay and imagery, to some degree at least, tend to read more like a stylish exercise in fantasy wordplay, rather than any attempt at a serious and grandiose statement.
Perhaps fueled by Jimmy Page's well documented fascination with occultist Aleister Crowley, and Robert Plant's penchant for mystical, folklore-infused lyrics, Led Zeppelin were frequently pigeonholed as a band with Satanic leanings, and were routinely accused by a number of writers and critics of adding satanic messages into their recordings. These messages, inaudible to the casual listener, could supposedly be heard while playing the songs backwards; a tactic known as "backmasking." Although usually ignored, these bizarre claims were occasionally refuted by the band members. In an interview with "Musician Magazine," Plant addressed the issue thus: "To me it's very sad, because '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."
Despite commenting through the years that he had grown rather tired of performing the song live, Robert Plant has also spoken excitedly about how easily and spontaneously the lyrics had spilled from his pen, saying that "My hand was writing out the words, 'There's a lady is sure (sic), all that glitters is gold, and she's buying a stairway to heaven.' I just sat there and looked at them and almost leapt out of my seat." Plant then went on to describe the song as a "cynical aside about a woman getting everything she wanted all the time without giving back any thought or consideration."
Plant's comments about the song, especially his gleeful recounting of the song's off-the-cuff lyrical approach would certainly seem to support the idea that like many successful and influential pieces of work, this song has probably been way over-analyzed through the years since its release. Perhaps Plant was simply having fun with random words and phrases that he simply liked the sound of? As the song says, "It makes me wonder."