Led Zeppelin’s Stairway To Heaven is one of the most iconic and popular songs of the music world for more than one reason.
Apart from the legendary guitarist, Jimmy Page’s remarkable solo, the jewel of the band’s eight-minute epic track, its starting riff, a rather simple melody to play, also became hilariously known as the “forbidden riff” after it had started playing almost everywhere.
Also defining the era of 1970s classic rock with the guitar riffs of the 1971 song, Stairway To Heaven also gave birth to a 1980s counterpart.
Bauhaus, a band deemed as one of the pioneers of gothic rock, discussed their single Bela Lugosi’s Dead in an interview with Uncut, where the singer, Peter Murphy referred to the track as the “Stairway To Heaven of the 1980s” to which drummer Kevin Haskins agreed by adding, “It definitely has a timeless quality.”
The band’s statements depict of how Stairway To Heaven was bound to become inspirations for future rock operas and ballads, the timelessness, Haskins mentioned.
As Murphy discussed the delivery of their song, he further mentioned, “The vocals come in about half an hour after everything else. Those two verses are like, ‘Who is that speaking?’ There was an oracular aspect to it. That voice had to come from the spirit of that beautiful, erotic, enigmatic character. That’s how the vampire worked in terms of alluring audiences. That particular monster of the Hollywood period was actually very beautiful.”
