Led Zeppelin led the way in musical innovation during the 1970s. The British band created a hard rock sound that has been incredibly influential, drawing inspiration from the blues. The band was formed in 1968, and after a few years of release of one of their biggest hits, “Stairway to Heaven,” in 1971, they became well-known.
They became one of the best-selling bands of all time. They amassed a sizable fan base of devoted worshippers. However, some of the band members eventually grew tired of the songs that initially propelled them to fame. The group’s lead singer, Robert Plant, has unexpectedly expressed some disapproval of “Stairway to Heaven.”
The song, which is nearly eight minutes long and combines elements of progressive rock and folk music, was featured on their album Led Zeppelin IV. But it became a mainstay of live sets to the point where the band eventually got tired of playing it. It especially wore Plant out. In 1988, he told Q, “If you detested ‘Stairway to Heaven,’ nobody can hold you accountable for it because it was so conceited.”
The expansive track is undoubtedly one that you can’t ignore. As Plant sings, it transitions between different instrumental flavors, creating a structure of almost epic proportions. However, Plant’s lyrical contributions are the song’s primary source of contention. Since it happened so long ago, I am unable to relate to it lyrically today. He once declared, “I would have no intention of writing along those abstract lines ever again.”
“But my contribution was to write lyrics and to sing a song about fate and something very British, almost abstract, but coming out of the mind of a 23-year-old guy,” he even declared decades later. It fell into the age range of guys who are 23 years old.
He doesn’t like just that particular song. The fantasy-inspired Zeppelin song “The Battle of Evermore” is one of the tracks from the same album that he called “embarrassing.” Plant isn’t as fond of the song as the majority of the band’s followers are. He famously remarked, “I was talking about C.S. Lewis and Tolkien then, living in a dream.” Naturally, it also makes everyone who picked up a guitar or came near a microphone by 1980 feel mocked. The issue with “Evermore” is… I told Alison [Krauss] that I felt ashamed of myself. However, you can’t feel ashamed because it’s a young person’s experience living in a place that reflects that time, the woman said.
The song is one of the band’s most lyrically compelling songs about the conflict between good and evil forces, and it has references to The Lord of the Rings. Plant can’t detest the song because he performed it often on their 2008 tour with Krauss. Nevertheless, he feels that the lyrical content is simply insufficient, much like in “Stairway to Heaven.”
It seems that Plant has the greatest dislike for “Stairway to Heaven” of all of their songs. Thinking that no one needed to ever hear the song again, he even paid a radio station $10,000 to never play it.
