In June 2016, Jimmy Page, Robert Plant and John Paul Jones appeared in court in Los Angeles to give evidence in a copyright trial that alleged Led Zeppelin copied the introduction of “Stairway To Heaven” from the song “Taurus” by Spirit, reports Led Zeppelin News. That trial resulted in a legal victory for Led Zeppelin that was upheld by an appeals court in 2020.
While appearing in court in 2016, the surviving members of Led Zeppelin discussed the writing and recording of “Stairway To Heaven” and their careers. Much of their testimony, which is available through court transcripts filed by the court, remains unseen by fans.
LedZepNews previously analyzed Page’s description during the trial of tapes of the writing of “Stairway To Heaven” that were played in court. Now, they're sharing the other highlights they found from the hundreds of pages of courtroom transcripts.
"We’ve slightly tidied up these quotes, removing verbatim sections where the band members misspeak or hesitate, to make them easier to read," says Led Zeppelin News.
In the following excerpt, Robert Plant remembers writing "Stairway To Heaven":
“I was in Headley Grange… in Surrey, I think it is, one evening, sitting with Jimmy Page. We were recording in this facility where you have a mobile truck which is modified, like a big horse truck, and inside it you got a kind of mobile recording studio. And out of the side of the truck you can take microphone lines, which go into the house, and you can position them in various places to get different kinds of sounds.
“So it gives you the freedom and facility to not to be governed by time, as you would do in a normal studio here or in a town or in a city, and it means that you can work whenever you want to, however you want to, and on whatever you wish.
“So sitting with Jimmy, we’re just sitting by the fire and ruminating and checking things out, was one thing, but we were recording and visiting lots of other bits and pieces randomly as we developed, you know, new stuff.
“That particular evening, I sat with Jimmy by the fire, and he began playing. And I had this little couplet lyrically that, if you like, in tempo, fitted into what he was playing. So I just started developing that into two lines, then four lines, and then on, slowly, opening it up.
“’There’s a lady who’s sure all that glitters is gold, and she’s buying a stairway to heaven. And when she gets there she knows that the stores are all closed; with a word she can get what she came for.’ Now, and on from there.
“I think the way that the mood of the place, everything that fell from me, I was really trying to bring in that aspect of Welsh, the beauty and the remoteness of the pastoral Britain. And I’d visited it previously on albums and — like ‘Ramble On’ was a song that we played on Led Zeppelin II. And ‘That’s the Way,’ was a song which was coming from the same mind-set for me as a 22-year-old, 23-year-old kid.
“So ‘Stairway,’ I wanted to try and bring in some of the natural, old, almost unspoken Celtic reference into a piece. So as the song developed, it became more and more evident that I could actually change and open up my contribution.
“Meanwhile, the guys were working on stuff between themselves and opening up the song and its transition into something that was really flowering and that was quite a thing as we moved on through the song, to open it up and to turn around various parts of it and see it develop into something I couldn’t even imagine.
“It did start rolling pretty fast, and as it rolled, it kind of buffered and it wasn’t completely complete, and some of the actual vocal pitch didn’t quite end up the way it has ended up.
“I moved it around a bit, and I also sang out of tune a lot, because when you’re trying to get something right, you have to try to meld it round a bit. And then as the song develops, there are several different sections within it that require a different response, because the chords are different. So, yeah, it had its own tempo and own momentum, and … then it galloped.”
Read more at Led Zeppelin News.
