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Charlie Carter

Led Zeppelin IV
	Led Zeppelin
	Atlantic
Many songs are revered and reviled in equal measure, but only one has both the majesty and grating pretentiousness to provoke both emotions in a single listener.
Stairway to Heaven, probably Led Zeppelin's most famous track, lives a double life. Depending on your mood, it is either a soaring epic of power-chord brilliance played by the greatest band ever, or over-indulgent nonsense screeched by the epitome of rock excess. At any one time Stairway is either the best song you've ever heard or right up there with Bohemian Rhapsody in the list of caterwauling atrocities most likely to drive you to murder.
It's easy to see why it has such a duplicitous relationship with serious music fans. On one hand, it's a remarkably catchy song with what many regard as the greatest guitar solo ever recorded. Also, it was Rolling Stone magazine's 31st most important song of all time without ever being officially released as a single.
But on the other hand, it lasts almost three times as long as the average pop song, flits irritatingly between time signatures, and is bogged down in lyrics so juvenile and incomprehensible as to make even children laugh. For example: "If there's a bustle in your hedgerow/Don't be alarmed now/It's just a spring clean for the May queen."
Stairway to Heaven's basic problem is timing. Released on the British stadium rockers' classic fourth album, it was seemingly ahead of its time. With more emphasis placed on the band's folk leanings, the 1971 collection was hailed for moving away from the previous three records' bias towards heavy blues.
The track encapsulated that musical progression in movements - progressive rock's aspirations to comparison with classical music meant its longest songs always comprised "movements" - that ranged from English balladry to heavy metal.
Unfortunately for Zeppelin, just a few years later came punk with its rejection of everything that came before it. Serious music fans in the 1970s were left in a quandary, feeling duty-bound to burn the Zep and Stones albums they still loved in favour of the energetic new sounds they were also keen to embrace.
The result was - and remains - a generation of conflicted listeners who revel in Stairway's sublime virtuosity, its dreamy melodies and visceral power - but at the same time despair at its indulgence and gaudiness.
The schizophrenia it induces is unlikely to worry guitarist Jimmy Page, or singer Robert Plant, who wrote the song: Led Zeppelin IV is the ninth biggest-selling album of all time, having sold 29 million copies - and counting.
Charlie Carter


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LIFE

Rewind, album: 'Led Zeppelin IV'

Led Zeppelin IV

Lifestyle

Arts

Many songs are revered and reviled in equal measure, but only one has both the majesty and grating pretentiousness to provoke both emotions in a single listener.


Rewind, album: 'Led Zeppelin IV'

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}Many songs are revered and reviled in equal measure, but only one has both the majesty and grating pretentiousness to provoke both emotions in a single listener.

Many songs are revered and reviled in equal measure, but only one has both the majesty and grating pretentiousness to provoke both emotions in a single listener.