The Song that Shall Not be Played
An unwritten and viciously enforced rule that thou shalt not play Stairway to Heaven at a music store or on the floor at NAMM
Way back in 1983 when I began learning to play guitar, I had some songs I felt were milestones that I needed to learn. Numero uno on my list was Stairway to Heaven.
To 18 year old me, that was the pinnacle of cool. When I finally learned it, it turned out that it wasn’t as difficult as I anticipated.
Of course, for about 9 months, every time I picked up a guitar, that was the song that began playing.
Then I ran into the unwritten rule. Turns out that there are some songs that will get you a tap on the shoulder and if you don’t desist, they will ask you out loud to stop.
For the record, others are Crazy Train, Eruption, and Master of Puppets.
Anyhow, here is Gabriella Quevedo, taking this timeless masterpiece and applying her unique take. I particularly like her arrangement of when Monsieur Page switches to electric, and she interprets this superbly adding flair and embellishments that are just part of her essence.
Click below and be prepared to tap your toes, and be transported to when you first heard Stairway to Heaven, and tell me if it sends chills down your spine. It did for me!
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Oh, God - not Stairway to Heaven. Anything but that.
Late ‘70s, I’m living in a residential hotel south of Market in San Francisco - catty-corner from the old Sutro Baths on Folsom. My buddy Mike is from Chicago - we meet at work and I clue him in to the cheap digs (a rare bird in Frisco even back then) and he gets a room in my building.
Mike is impressed by my guitar chops - I’ve been playing since the mid sixties - and decided he wanted to learn to play too. “Great! You can start with the first song I learned, Streets of Laredo. You can play it with two chords, D and A7, which gets you started on learning your chords.”
Nope. He wants to learn to play Stairway to Heaven. Better yet, he wants to LEARN TO PLAY GUITAR by learning to play Stairway to Heaven, and there’s no way he can be swayed from this. He’s too fucking good to start with Mary Had A Little Lamb like every other musician on the planet. He’s going to learn Stairway to Heaven and by doing so, become adept at playing guitar.
As you might imagine, this did not turn out well. He knew I could play it because I’d foolishly played it for him once (invoking the Curse, no doubt) so for the next couple of years, he’d come by and I’d have to listen to him attempt to mangle Led Zeppelin. What Jimmy Page or I ever did to deserve that was beyond me, but eventually Mike moved back to Chicago and it was no longer an issue.
As far as I know, he never even bought a guitar let alone learned to play. But I sometimes wonder if he still annoys his guitar-playing friends with “No, wait! I almost got it this time!” while still refusing to even consider learning a fucking chord. And to this day, I don’t play or even listen to THAT song.
Fantastic version of Stairway to Heaven. Glad to discover this artist.