Stairway to Heaven: 10 Interesting and Fun Facts

Ahmet Hakan Cengiz
  • The lyrics, written by Led Zeppelin vocalist Robert Plant next to an evening log fire, were inspired by his search for spiritual perfection. A seminal influence was the book Magic Arts in Celtic Britain by Lewis Spence, which Plant had recently read; it contained references to May Queens, pipers, and “bustling hedgerows.”
  • In 1982, a California State Assembly consumer-protection-committee hearing featured testimony from “experts” who claimed that “Stairway,” when played backward, contained the words: “I sing because I live with Satan. The Lord turns me off — there’s no escaping it. Here’s to my sweet Satan, whose power is Satan. He will give you 666. I live for Satan.” Evidence of a demonic message? Or was the backward-masking controversy started by a failing electronics firm as a ploy to get teenagers to ruin turntables by spinning them backward? Swan Song Records also issued the following statement at the time which said:“Our turntables only play in one direction—forwards.”
  • In 2003 it was named #31 in Rolling Stones ‘Top 500 Songs of All Time’ and #3 in VH1 in their 2000 awards for the ‘100 Greatest Rock Songs of All Time’ awards.
  • The tendency for many aspiring guitar players to learn to play the introduction to the song was spoofed in the 1992 Mike Myers movie Wayne’s World, when a “No Stairway to Heaven” regulation is enforced at a music store visited by the title character. The intro was replaced with a more generic, non-“Stairway” riff in later releases of the movie, making the joke incomprehensible. Plant himself referenced the scene’s “No Stairway? Denied!” line during a concert appearance with Page in 1995.
  • On January 23, 1991, John Sebastian, owner and general manager of KLSK FM in Albuquerque, New Mexico, played the song for twenty-four solid hours to inaugurate a format change to classic rock. It played more than two hundred times, eliciting hundreds of angry calls and letters. Police showed up with guns drawn, once after a listener reported that the deejay had apparently suffered a heart attack, later because of suspicion that — this being eight days into the Gulf War — the radio station had been taken hostage by terrorists dispatched by Zeppelin freak Saddam Hussein. Weirdest of all, lots of listeners didn’t move the dial. “Turns out a lot of people listened to see when we would finally stop playing it.”

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