Much has been made about Robert Plant being known as a ‘Golden God’ among men. Throughout his time with Led Zeppelin, his ability to hold the crowd in the palm of his hand is something that frontmen are still trying to reach to this day, and it’s not like he didn’t have the vocal chops to back it up. However, there were more than a few times when he tended to go too far, and even he would admit that ‘Stairway to Heaven’ is one of the more pompous vocals he would ever lay down.
First, let’s peel off the bandage right now and say that Plant doesn’t hold ‘Stairway’ in as high a regard as everyone else. Though Jimmy Page considers it one of the main highlights of the band’s career, Plant believed that it was closer to wedding music half the time and was far from the top of his list when it came to grandiose moments.
Then again, there’s no other way to deliver a song like this other than to be grandiose. The whole track is supposed to be one long journey throughout its runtime, and given how much punch is behind the backing track, Plant would have been doing it a disservice if he ended up croaking up every line like some kind of jazz singer.
Still, Plant’s delivery is one of the flashiest of his career, almost like he is pouring over every single word. It’s most apparent in between the verses, where he’s wordlessly singing along as if he’s trying to go for an ethereal tone, but he ends up sounding like those wordless singers that play in the background of some melodramatic fighting movie.
If anything, John Paul Jones’ orchestrations did a lot of the work for Plant in terms of melodrama. The woodwind instruments playing in the breaks already refine the entire track, so having Plant pile it on even further is probably the reason why he looks back and cringes.
However, all is forgiven when we reach the rock and roll parts of the song. As soon as the gear shifts in the track and Page launches into his guitar solo, Plant is much more comfortable getting that scream going in the final verse, especially when he holds out that last note when he sings the line, “To be a rock and not to roll”.
Considering how much ground has been covered within the span of just one minute, though, it feels odd hearing him wail directly after getting the theatre-style singing just a minute before. But for all of the self-important inflexions that he puts into the song, Plant’s delivery is still impossible to replace in the tune.
The whole reason ‘Stairway to Heaven’ worked in the first place was that it was a culmination of everything they had been playing until that point, so why not have a little more conviction behind the delivery? Plant certainly sings the track that he is one of the biggest front men in the world, but if there was any time in the world when he could back up that claim, it didn’t get much better than the moment the track was released
In 1975, Led Zeppelin singer Robert Plant and his wife were both badly injured when the rented car Plant was driving spun off the road and crashed on the Greek island of Rhodes. The rocker smashed his ankle and elbow, causing the band to have to cancel a North American tour.
In 1980, John Lennon began recording Double Fantasy with Yoko Ono.
In 1984, Genesis’ Phil Collins married Jill Tavelman. At the reception, Phil jammed with Eric Clapton and Robert Plant.
In 2003, Jack White posted graphic video footage of his hand operation on the White Stripes’ website. The rocker needed three screws implanted to set the bones in his hand after a July car crash.
In 2004, Taking Back Sunday debuted at number three on the album chart with their sophomore effort, Where You Want to Be.
And in 2008, Bono proved that he reads RollingStone.com by leaving a long comment on the site, reminiscing about U2’s first album, Boy.
And that’s what happened today in rock history.
