Robert Plant on the “spectacular” Heart cover of ‘Stairway to Heaven’
Robert Plant has a difficult relationship with ‘Stairway to Haven’. During his time fronting Led Zeppelin, it was the band’s signature song, bringing down the house whenever it was played to live audiences. But Plant famously became tired of the track, to the extent that he’s done some hilarious things to try and avoid ‘Stairway’ at all costs.
Plant doesn’t play ‘Stairway’ during any of his solo concerts, and the last time he sang it live was during Zeppelin’s 2007 reunion at the Ahmet Ertegun tribute concert. In the time before and after, Plant has had a comically adversarial relationship with ‘Stairway’, including an attempt to get a radio station in America to stop playing the song by offering them $10,000.
That animosity doesn’t seem to translate over when other artists cover the song, however. In a recent interview with Vulture, Plant opened up about watching Heart cover ‘Stairway’ when Led Zeppelin were given Kennedy Center Honours back in 2012.
“It was just something that I’d never, ever thought I would look at from this gallery,” Plant said. “I didn’t ever see myself as smarting around seeing an artist’s impression of it. I knew it was coming — the Kennedy Center told us to expect something — but I didn’t know how it was going to be. It was a spectacular performance. I’m now a voyeur.”
Plant talked about how freeing it was to have someone else associated with the song. “I’m not responsible for it anymore. I’m not in guitar shops being told not to do it,” Plant said. “I’m not going down the aisle at a wedding playing it with a flute. I love the song. It came upon me and stripped away all the years of being a part of all that.”
“It just rubbed it right back to the bone. Because maybe it was all over for us a long time before it was all over. It was definitely all over without John. I mean that,” Plant added. “We’re talking here about one song from 50-plus years ago. It’s just a magnificent performance to watch and it kills me every time. It kills me in two or three different ways. It’s just like, ‘Oh my God.’”
Check out Heart’s performance of ‘Stairway to Heaven’ down below.
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