Stairway to heaven

"Stairway to Heaven" is a song by Led Zeppelin, released in late 1971. It was composed by guitarist Jimmy Page and vocalist Robert Plant for the band's untitled fourth studio album (usually referred to as Led Zeppelin IV). The song, running eight minutes and two seconds, is composed of several sections, which increase in tempo and volume as the song progresses. The song begins as a slow acoustic-based folk song accompanied by recorders before electric instrumentation is introduced. The final section is a high-tempo hard rock section highlighted by an intricate guitar solo by Page.

The song, often considered one of the greatest rock songs of all-time, was voted #3 in 2000 by VH1 on its list of the 100 Greatest Rock Songs, and was placed at number 31 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of "The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time". It was the most requested song on FM radio stations in the United States in the 1970s, despite never having been officially released as a single there. In November 2007, through download sales promoting Led Zeppelin's Mothership release, "Stairway to Heaven" hit #37 on the UK Singles Chart.

The song consists of several distinct sections, beginning with a quiet introduction on a finger picked six string guitar and four recorders in a Renaissance music style (ending at 2:15) and gradually moving into a slow electric middle section (2:16–5:33), then a long guitar solo (5:34–6:44), before the faster hard rock final section (6:45 to the end). Written in the key of A minor, the song opens with an arpeggiated, finger-picked guitar chord progression with a chromatic descending bassline A-G#-G-F#-F-E. John Paul Jones contributed overdubbed wooden bass recorders in the opening section (he used a Mellotron and, later, a Yamaha CP70B Grand Piano and Yamaha GX1 to synthesize this arrangement in live performances) and a Hohner Electra-Piano electric piano in the middle section. The sections build with more guitar layers, each complementary to the intro, with the drums entering at 4:18. The extended Jimmy Page guitar solo in the song's final section was played for the recording on a 1959 Fender Telecaster (an instrument he used extensively with the Yardbirds) plugged into a Supro amplifier.


The song has been covered a number of times. More than 25 different versions of the song that were performed live by guest stars on the early 1990s, each being a unique version of the song in the usually idiosyncratic style of performance of each guest star.