Jimmy Page: How Stairway to Heaven was written - BBC News

I've wanted to try to put something together which started with quite a fragile exposed acoustic guitar playing in sort of style of a poor man's beret bumper hock that sort of aspect as far as the instrumentation goes there are going to be a this recorders to the early part which given sort of slightly medieval film there's all in good and she's by that was an idea of John Paul Jones is to put the recorders on and he played that recorded one actually had the idea for stairway I wasn't that wasn't necessary I wasn't thinking record as I was thinking more the texture of actually the electric piano but she wants to be sure you know the idea of stairway was to have a piece of music a composition whereby it would just keep unfolding into more more layers and more moods and actually the whole intensity of the or subtlety and the intensity the cut big that the overlay of the composition would actually accelerate as it went through on every level every emotional level every musical level and so it just keeps opening up as it's as it as it continues through it sort of passing you robert was magnificent with his input of lyrics to the music of Led Zeppelin anyway this was during the period that we weren't Headley Grange that that the thing was put together it was slightly complicated to be doing this whole thing without a vocal because at the time there weren't any lyrics and this is the this was a backbone of what the song was going what was intended to be and the the whole of the running order from the beginning to the end was sort of mapped out it was tricky it was a tricky thing to do because there's a lot of music and changes in it I remember during that period Robert was he was sort of sitting down leaning against the wall and he was just sort of writing I'm you know I won't never forget that image of him doing that we do a run through it from beginning to end with the guitar opening as we all know and then Robert comes up and starts to he starts to pitch in and sing and I tell you he had said must have been 90% of the lyrics were already done what I'd learned about John Bowman that he could be really effective if he came in somewhere down the line on and so everything is starting to open up on this map on this journey through and all of this stuff was planned you know it wasn't an accident or everyone chipping in it was just it really was a sort of design one of the cardinal rules when I was a studio musician was that you didn't speed up and I was keen to do something which had an acceleration to it not only from the musical point of view but from the lyricist so that the whole thing would start to gain a momentum as it went through so it wasn't just a monotone piece and by that I actually mean that it would that it would subtly speed up so you're breaking the number one carbon the concept of the solo was to have something like as a fanfare so it's a definite transition so it comes in with a with a fanfare to introduce his solo the solo is just gonna sort right through it was a very inspired time for all of us at the time that we were living in that Headley Grange as a residence eating sleeping making music that's what we were doing day after day after day and it sort of tells when you hear the fourth album but you know stairways is sort of a by-product of it but of all of that but you know it's obviously been fun and substantial in as a milestone for Led Zeppelin at the end of that solo there's trails which lead it into this huge finale which is the vocal as we went winding down the road and by that point it's really it's it's really mojo he's not racing but it is just the passion of it it's just it's just unfolded on every respective of the lyrical aspect of that Robert was inspired there's really an inspired period of time it sort of shows her like the lasting quality of this music over all these years is the fact that everyone's finally so honestly and with such conviction that in sort of shows she's by

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Views: 10,241,221

Rating: 4.9270282 out of 5

Keywords: Stairway To Heaven, Jimmy Page (Musical Artist), Led Zeppelin (Musical Group), bbc, news, music, bbc music, bbc news, jimmy, page, jimmy page interview, lyrics, how to play, rock, robert, plant, john, bonham, John Bonham (Award Winner), Robert Plant (Musical Artist), interview, culture, youtube, video, led, zeppelin, led zeppelin, song, robert plant, rock roll, how stairway to heaven was written, Spirit, Randy Wolfe, Michael Skidmore

Id: DDo4CA13LbY

Length: 8min 16sec (496 seconds)

Published: Fri Oct 10 2014

Reddit Comments

[u/AtomsNamedJeff]

Great video. Side note: Am I the only one who thinks Jimmy Page keeps looking more and more Asian as he ages?

[u/ultimus117]

I read in a guitar magazine when I was in high school that he had 3 separate solos for stairway to heaven, all improvised and he chose that one. Blows my mind that theres two other stairway solos out there. It was such a good magazine because they focused on one artist or band every quarterly issue I think.

[u/mindokiller]

I loved what Page has to say about the composition of the song. The video was a bit annoying; the sheer number of times they used this shot, with the needle just about to reach the end of the record, was quite infuriating.

[u/eelaws]

I like the little pleased smile he gives to the camera at around the 8:08 mark. Perfect showmanship.

[u/sirgallium]

Ever since I saw a video of Page playing dazed and confused using a bowstrting (not sure what it's called), that cemented him as my favorite guitarist. He may not have the best technical skills of all time, but different people have different tastes and styles they like naturally, and I love his playing style.

[u/JeamBim]

Step one, steal riff from Spirit.

Step two, profit.

[u/AlbertoJack]

Brillant

[u/taninecz]

really highlights how 80% of music these days is horse shit.

i really, thoroughly enjoyed this.