Music
Led Zeppelin’s “Stairway to Heaven” resembles a famous Bible story. Interestingly, “Stairway to Heaven” first became a hit decades after its release.
Classic rock was sometimes seen as the devil’s music but it knew how to get biblical. For example, Led Zeppelin’s “Stairway to Heaven” resembles a famous Bible story. Interestingly, “Stairway to Heaven” first became a hit decades after its release.
Before Led Zeppelin, the Bible had a stairway to heaven
According to Genesis 11, humanity once spoke one language but ruined its unity. “They said ‘Go to, let us build us a city and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven; and let us make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth,’” the passage says. “And the Lord came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of men built. And the Lord said, ‘Behold, the people is one, and they have all one language; and this they begin to do: and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do. Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another’s speech.’
“So the Lord scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth: and they left off to build the city,” the passage continues. “Therefore is the name of it called Babel; because the Lord did there confound the language of all the earth: and from thence did the Lord scatter them abroad upon the face of all the earth.”
So, the Bible includes its own stairway to heaven. However, it fails spectacularly. Over the course of the Book of Genesis, humanity only becomes more divided and distant from God.
Led Zeppelin captured the tone of the story of the Tower of Babel from the Bible
The tone of “Stairway to Heaven” also fits with the tone of the story of the Tower of Babel. Humanity’s attempt to reach heaven in Genesis 11 is framed as a tragic error. That’s similar to the way that Robert Plant sounds mournful when he sings about a woman who thinks all that glitters is gold and is buying a stairway to heaven.
Does this make “Stairway to Heaven” a religious song? No. Many works of art allude to the Bible, subtly or overtly, in order to make a broader point or to seem dignified. “Stairway to Heaven” clearly tries to feel profound and mythological, so it’s no surprise it sounds like a passage from Genesis.
‘Stairway to Heaven’ was not a hit in the United States
“Stairway to Heaven” was not a single, so it did not chart on the Billboard Hot 100. The tune appeared on the unnamed album known as Led Zeppelin IV. That record peaked at No. 2 on the Billboard 200 and stayed on the chart for 287 weeks. It remains Led Zeppelin’s most popular album in the United States and “Stairway to Heaven” remains a big part of its legacy.
According to The Official Charts Company, “Stairway to Heaven” became a modest hit in the United Kingdom in 2007. It peaked at No. 37 and spent eight weeks on the chart. Meanwhile, Led Zeppelin IV was No. 1 for two of its 90 weeks on the chart.
“Stairway to Heaven” is one of the rare rock songs of truly biblical proportions.
