Led Zeppelin's 'Stairway to Heaven' Has 'Greatest Guitar Solo' That Was Improvised
And she's buying a stairway to Heaven.
Led Zeppelin was a musical force of nature during their zenith, and their impact reverberates through pop culture even to this day. Seamlessly blending hard rock and progressive rock with flourishes of blues and folk music, the four-piece outfit was a musical trailblazer. Every member was (and is) considered to be at the top of their craft.
While Led Zeppelin has released their fair share of career-defining tracks, nothing quite compares to their seminal work, "Stairway to Heaven." Released on Nov. 8, 1971, as a single from the band's fourth studio album, Led Zeppelin IV, it's a masterclass in music composition.
While the tune didn't chart very high back then, retrospectively, its acclaim is ubiquitous. "Stairway to Heaven" won the Grammy Hall of Fame Award in 2003 and was included in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's list of the "500 Songs That Shaped Rock and Roll." In 2023, the song was selected for preservation in the National Recording Registry by the Library of Congress.
Rolling Stone has named the track on its "500 Greatest Songs of All Time" lists over the years, with guitarist Jimmy Page's solo taking the crown for Guitar World's "50 Greatest Guitar Solos in Rock and Roll History." A 2006 reader poll for the publication also saw Page's solo rank at the top of "The Greatest Guitar Solos."
The solo in "Stairway to Heaven" is a thing of beauty...and it was improvised. Page shared that he had recorded three improvised solos, but was indecisive regarding which one to use. He expounded on the recording process to Classic Rock magazine:
"I just said: ‘Roll it’, took a deep breath – that’s what I usually do – and then go. I had a couple of cracks at it because you didn’t have as many options as you would have now. I worked out how I was going to actually come into it, the first two or three notes, but after that I didn’t work it out, I just played it."
Sometimes, you simply need to take a deep breath and go. In Page's case, flying by the seat of your pants can lead to musical gold.