Stairway To Heaven

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kKXJPUoyn_g

Ward needs $$$ these days. Probably got a nice payday for that appearance.

haha jesus christ you are delusional? you seriously think ward didn't admire bonzo?? you are fucking nuts....ward (who seems like total sweetheart) shares this sweet remembrance of bonzo and you think he was paid to do it?

you realize bonzo was the best man at tony iommi's wedding right??

yes he is delusional

seriously i feel like i'm trapped in an argument between two 15 yr old burnouts in 1976

That film is dubbed. Its not really Ward saying that stuff. He's really saying "thanks for coming. try the veal and tip your server".

If Ward is so good and nice then why is he not in Black Sabbath? Huh? HUH!?

Case closed.

the lawyer in the Spirit/Zep case sounds like such a despicable fuckup in this unrelated lawsuit that Zep probably has nothing to worry about:

http://m.billboard.com/articles/columns/the-juice/6099113/usher-gets-good-news-in-bad-girl-dispute

It has an unusual structure. No chorus, just verse piled upon verse until it builds to a single peak. I like that.

― Mark, Sunday, July 14, 2002 7:00 PM (12 years ago)

it does have the refrain tho to link the verses together - 'makes me wonder'

i haven't checked but i feel like it gets a lot out of its pronouns. opening section, the singer sings about the lady. he shows up later as an 'i'. then when he's still singing as an 'i' he sings 'you' a lot - he seems to technically be addressing the lady, but it's all very canny, since by that point momentum has been building and the song has been getting more involving and just the way the phrasing works, it's pretty natural to think it's about 'you', but it's not the 'you' of a rock song in the format of being addressed to a generic/specific opposite for the singer (lover, romantic pursuit, etc.), by the time that it's been narrativized like that you hear it as the second-person present that signals an immediate perspective (jay mcinerny-style, at least per what used to be the go-to example) that tracks thru the real-time movement of the song that you're experiencing. which, duh - look at the lyrics at that point, when the drums kick in

If there's a bustle in your hedgerow, don't be alarmed now,
It's just a spring clean for the May queen.
Yes, there are two paths you can go by, but in the long run
There's still time to change the road you're on.
And it makes me wonder.

Your head is humming and it won't go, in case you don't know,
The piper's calling you to join him,
Dear lady, can you hear the wind blow, and did you know
Your stairway lies on the whispering wind?

so you literally get a little discombobulated by the hedgerow line, because he tells you not to be alarmed just after you're like, what the fuck is a hedgero—oh right, and then the next line doesn't quite parse, so you feel a sense of mystery, and just as the music is amping up he starts talking about you like you're traveling and there's still time, so you're sitting there feeling the time get faster (so there's urgency! there's time but you can't be late!) and yes your head IS humming because the music is humming and the piper's calling YOU! after that i feel like the slip back to addressing the lady is just a formality.

can u tell i've been listening to a lot of zeppelin this week

The lack of coherency in the lyric may be one of the reasons why Plant appears to be so embarrassed by Stairway nowadays. Can't say it bothers me, but then again no one's asking me to sing it in public.

J., there's also a "we" that seems important: between the "I' verse ("There's a feeling I get...") and the first "you" verse (the hedgerow business), you get "And it's whispered that soon/If we all call the tune/Then the piper will lead us to reason/And a new day will dawn" etc. Then the third-person lady, the "you", and the "we" (but not the "I") all come together in the final hard rock section: "we wind on down the road"; "there walks a lady we all know"; "if you listen very hard, the tune will come to you at last".

yes, i left those out even though they're obviously the payoff pronouns, because i don't know what we're supposed to be, like, united behind, even though obviously we are. calling the tune.

Back in the news.

Already noted in the general Zep thread...

this is playing in the coffee shop. hard to not start singing along.

oooOOOOOOoooooooooooo it makes me wonder

i love corny classic rock staples so much.

never been any reason is my personal stairway to heaven

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_QFDsUgjqIo

OMG, I don't think I've ever seen that clip. Al Stewart as a punchline! What a world!

I love SCTV so much

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2016/jun/23/led-zeppelin-cleared-stairway-to-heaven-lawsuit-spirit

amen

correct

Stupidest infringement case ever

but wait!
https://www.sfgate.com/entertainment/article/Led-Zeppelin-to-face-retrial-over-Stairway-13266011.php

this is dumb as shit

While allowing a new jury to hear a recording of "Taurus" may put Led Zeppelin at a disadvantage, the context in which the recording can now be considered by jurors will be limited. The plaintiffs can play it for Page in open court to ask him if he'd ever heard the song before writing "Stairway."

Allowing "the jury to observe Page listening to the recordings would have enabled them to evaluate his demeanor while listening to the recordings as well as when answering questions," the three-judge appeals panel said. That line of questioning would be meant to establish whether Page had "access" to the song, an element of copyright infringement.

At the same time, the jury will still be instructed only to consider the sheet music when assessing whether the two songs are "substantially similar," the other element of infringement, the appeals court said.

observe Page listening to the recordings would have enabled them to evaluate his demeanor

Like his eyes are gonna comically bug out and steam will start shooting out of his ears.

Wtf

Of all the potential copyright infringements, this one is the dumbest.

our shadows = taller than our souls

Like his eyes are gonna comically bug out and steam will start shooting out of his ears.

LOL, seriously. Or he starts tugging at his collar nervously as beads of sweat begin pouring down his brow...

https://tse3.mm.bing.net/th?id=OIP.GhCH-McVawkZkBuQ4DEuxAHaEL&pid=Api

Guilty!

Btw — the RIAA is urging for this case not to be opened back up, saying that a ruling against Zep would throw the music copyright field into chaos (...even more than the “Blurred Lines” decision has, I add editorially).

Sorry, I didn’t state it very well — it’s the ruling by the three-judge panel, vacating the earlier verdict and saying that LZ must face a new trial, that the RIAA and a music publishers’ group are pushing back on:

On Monday, the RIAA and the NMPA warned that the panel decision would allow infringement claims over the use of "basic musical elements that have long been seen as unprotectable."

"Nearly every time a composer chooses to include a sequence of a few notes, an arpeggio or a chromatic scale in a composition, some other composer will have most likely 'selected' the same elements at some level of generality," the groups said.

george harrison got what he deserved.

Still can’t get used to that extra beat at 5:35 after all these years

It's not an extra beat. The "one" just isn't where you think it is.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GhlLtd19szw

Frank Zappa's cover helps emphasize this (starting at 6:03 in this version):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yOADUlfh2qY

[/rhythmic pedantry]

One of the weirder things that happen in Jimmy's solo towards the end of the 3rd bar (~6:08), when he's playing in the 5th position, he releases his barre and plays a single open G string, semi-palm muted.

Maybe a flub?

Do you mean the G at the beginning of m. 6 here?: https://i.pinimg.com/originals/3e/a7/34/3ea734fe981150735f350e6288b7ae89.jpg . I've always done that on the 5th fret of the D string. I'm pretty sure it's intentional in any case. That said, tbh, I actually do find this solo challenging to do cleanly at tempo.

I just checked the live clips from the Song Remains the Same version and the 75 Earls Court version and that passage is completely different from the studio version both times, although everything in the solo prior to that point is v close. Maybe he found it challenging too?

(although tbh that's actually one of the easy parts imo, at least if you do it all in fifth position)

A student brought in "Samba Triste" and I wonder if maybe Baden Powell should have sued Spirit:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=znEjrSnwP_4

Brian Hodel's arrangement, from 83, I think, actually uses the identical voicings of the first three chords as they are found in "Stairway":
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rTpqZlEimtI