You say Led Zeppelin and you say Stairway to Heaven. He won’t be happy about it Robert Plant.
The band’s singer has repeatedly expressed his intolerance towards the greatest rock ballad in history, as defined in 2011 by Rolling Stone. Second Far Out Magazine, Plant allegedly paid a radio station ten thousand dollars to never broadcast again Stairway to Heaven.
Didn’t he think he was exaggerating? What could be the reasons for such a strong aversion?
In 1988, the voice of Led Zeppelin told the magazine Q: “No one can blame you for hating Stairway to Heaven, Why it’s decidedly pompous.” The problem therefore concerns the lyrics of the song: “I can no longer tune into that song from a lyrical point of view – were Plant’s words – because too much time has passed. I have no intention of writing such abstract verses anymore.”
“My contribution – declared the singer – was to write the lyrics and sing a song about destiny and about something very British, almost abstract, but which came from the mind of a 23-year-old boy”. At the same time, the author said that the culture of the 70s was dominated by artists who were the same age as him, suggesting that the fortune of Stairway to Heaven should be attributed to its alignment with the spirit of the times.
The other Led Zeppelin song that embarrasses Plant
Stairway to Heaven it’s not the only song to embarrass Plant. The same happens with The Battle of Evermorealso contained in Led Zeppelin IV from 1971. “I was living in a kind of dream at the time, talking about CS Lewis and Tolkien,” said Plant, who added: “I told Alison [Krauss, una musicista con cui ha collaborato]: ‘I’m ashamed of this’.”
Plant e Krauss.
The ones above could be interpreted as words that imply a tension towards artistic reinvention: it is possible that the founding member of Led Zeppelin felt the need to escape the influence of old songs to prevent past successes from rigidly defining a constantly changing musical identity. In other words, Plant doesn’t want to be limited by the weight of his legacy. Among the great authors, he is certainly not the only one.
I watch films and play video games, from a certain point in life I also started writing about them. I am fascinated by the remote corners of the internet, the graphics of the first 3D video games and the images that fall under the not at all defined umbrella of the term aesthetic, with respect to which I carry out a compulsive cataloging activity that has as its point of arrival some Instagram profiles. However, the TV series with the best aesthetics (and the best overall) is The X-Files, which I never ended up not conceiving the thought “there are no more episodes of The X-Files to watch for the rest of my life”. Same thing with Evangelion (the manga).
date: 2026-02-08 12:04:00
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