In this long gloomy season of celebrity deaths, a Led Zeppelin rock classic has been given a new lease of life, albeit through antagonistic circumstances.
Stairway to Heaven, a 45-year-old song by the British supergroup, widely seen as one of the greatest rock compositions of all time, is now caught in the muddle of a copyright row as it is said to have been copied from another song.
This is because its opening part appears to bear similarities to Taurus, an instrumental number recorded earlier by a little known American band called Spirit. In Malaysia they call it ciplak.
You know what they say about controversies being the best sales pitch. Stairway to Heaven is now reported to be getting more airplay in radio stations and renewed interest in record stores.
An American court, at a preliminary hearing of the copyright suit, decided earlier last month that the case should go before a jury trial scheduled for next Tuesday.
But the question before us is, why now? Why, after all these years, must this eight minutes of brilliance written and arranged by band members Jimmy Page and Robert Plant, recorded in the third quarter of the last century, be degraded and put to a test like this even if there is no statute of limitation to govern such cases?
I remember I was in Form Six when this song, along with Misty Mountain Hop and the whole bunch from Led Zeppelin’s untitled album came out and I was instantly mesmerised.
Together with my classmates, we would play the song over and over again on our record player without growing tired of it. If it was now, some religious bigots would tell you to stop being depraved by such songs as to them, there cannot be a stairway to heaven.
Stairway to Heaven explodes into a glorious climax after a splendid buildup coupled with clever words relevant on all matters for all times such as: “And a new day will dawn for those who stand long, And the forests will echo in laughter.”
It opens so softly in a medieval touch with an acoustic guitar accompanying a recorder (yes, the same instrument students get to play in music classes in primary school) and, apparently, this is the part that is in dispute.
I listened closely to the opening riffs of both songs the other day and although I found there were indeed similarities, the parallels ended right there and did not extend beyond 30 seconds.
Stairway to Heaven, released in 1971, is widely seen as a rock masterpiece and, among millions of songs, is placed at No. 31 in the Rolling Stone magazine’s “500 greatest songs of all time”, sandwiched in between Sympathy for the Devil by The Rolling Stones at No. 32 and I Walk the Line by Johnny Cash at No. 30.
News report said the copyright infringement action was brought by Michael Skidmore, a trustee for late Spirit guitarist Randy Wolfe, who sometimes played in the same gigs as Led Zeppelin in the 1960s, and claimed he should be given a writing credit on the track.
Led Zeppelin guitarist Page and lead singer Plant, however, were reported to have written Stairway to Heaven in a remote cottage in Wales, while Skidmore maintained the song came about after the band heard Spirit perform the instrumental Taurus while the bands toured together in 1968 and 1969.
All said, copyright claims on songs have been quite common over the years and one of the best known ones concerned former Beatle George Harrison’s huge hit My Sweet Lord said to have been plagiarised from He’s So Fine written by Ronnie Mack and made popular by The Chiffons. In the end, Harrison was found guilty of “subconscious plagiarism” and had to pay US$1,599,987 (RM6.4 million) of the earnings from My Sweet Lord to the opposing party.
Another case was the 1990 hip song Ice Ice Baby by one-hit wonder Vanilla Ice which closely copied Under Pressure by Queen and David Bowie. The matter, it seemed, was settled out of court.
Of course, there are many other distinct similarities between songs, especially those involving music in the 12-bar blues genre, which, to a muffled listener, all sound the same.
Syed Nadzri is former NST group editor
