I love Queen to death, but the middle opera section, while beyond amazing, interrupts a killer rock song IMO.
Yes, some of the stairway lyrics are hippy dippy but it was written in 1970 when the hippy thing was still pretty prominent.
Read from many sources that about 75% of the lyrics were written spur of the moment by Plant, sitting in front of a fireplace, while Page and Bonham were working out the song down the hall.
Again both amazing songs, but what puts Stairway ahead for me is the brilliant use of tempo and dynamics. It starts with a slow whisper and then, before the coda, is exploding at a breakneck pace.
Page's solo and Bonham's drumming for the win.
Saw Queen do Bohemian at the Boston Garden in 1977 (MIND BLOWING) if anyone is interesting with some killer details.
__________________
“The fact that we live at the bottom of a deep gravity well,
on the surface of a gas covered planet going around a nuclear fireball 90 million miles away
and think this to be normal is obviously some indication of how skewed our perspective tends to be.”
|