“Stairway to Heaven” is one of the most famous rock songs ever recorded. It’s also one of the most overplayed. So overplayed, in fact, that it has been banned from guitar stores, immortalized in Wayne’s World and become the subject of a long-running copyright battle over its opening guitar figure.
But Robert Plant once went a step further: He paid a radio station to stop playing it.
The Led Zeppelin singer revealed the story in a 2002 interview with NPR, recalling a drive through Oregon that ended with a speeding ticket — and an unusual pledge to a local community radio station.
“I was in Portland, Oregon,” Plant said. “I was driving along in my car, heading for Lincoln City, which is out on the coast. I wanted to drive down to Eureka.
“Just before the black-and-white [the highway patrol] caught me doing 90mph, [I was listening to] KBOO.”
KBOO is a volunteer-run community radio station that was founded in 1964. At the time of Plant’s drive, the station had a tongue-in-cheek approach to raising money from its listeners.
“It had this amazing music,” Plant recalled. “It was kind of a mixture of sad outtakes of doo-wop and a very droll DJ, who sounded like somebody from Marin County in 1967.”
Then the DJ made an offer Plant couldn’t refuse.
“The guy came on saying they were looking for sponsorships: ‘Please send in $10’ or whatever, and if people in the area did that, KBOO would promise never to play ‘Stairway to Heaven,’” Plant explained. “So I called him up and pledged my money. I was one of the KBOO sponsors.”
It’s unclear exactly how much Plant paid. Some reports have claimed he donated $10,000, but there’s no concrete evidence to support that figure. Plant’s own story suggests the pledge may have been closer to the station’s suggested $10.
Either way, he was apparently willing to pay to avoid hearing his own band’s biggest song.
Plant’s apparent ambivalence toward “Stairway to Heaven” contrasts with Jimmy Page’s longstanding enthusiasm for the track. Page has described wanting the song to begin with a “fragile acoustic guitar,” played like “a poor man’s ‘Bourrée’ by Bach,” before the addition of recorders gave the opening a medieval quality. From there, the song gradually builds into a blues-rock epic before exploding into one of the most celebrated guitar solos in rock history.
Page has also discussed the unusual tonal possibilities created by the Gibson EDS-1275 electric guitar he used to perform the song live, switching between its 12-string and six-string necks. The guitar had been discontinued when Page acquired it via special order, but his use of the guitar on tour inspired Gibson to bring the model back in 1974.
As for Plant, though, the song’s greatest achievement may be that he once paid money not to hear it.
