59. Stairway to Heaven vs. Babe I'm Gonna Leave You

[stip]

[stip]

Easy vote for Stairway

[@SkitchP]

Im in the camp that Stairway has circled back around to being socially acceptable. But BIGLY is so damn good.


I especially love this alternate take. Rawer vocals, heavier drums..

SO GOOOOOD

[evenslow]

Dear lady, can you hear the wind blow

[LoathedVermin72]

BIGLY is so much better than STH it's not even funny

[koopee27]

bigly


kp

[E.H. Ruddock]

bigly, easy.

Stairway is LZ's version of In My Tree for me. Everyone else loves it, I think it is vastly overrated.

[KurtLeon]

Well shit.

[Jammer XCI]

Bigly, gotta be bigly, it’s the best.

[PHATJ]

It’s Stairway by a massive margin.

[EJ]

It’s Stairway by a massive margin.

[darth_vedder]

bigly

[Kevin Davis]

"Babe I'm Gonna Leave You" is a powerhouse performance of a relatively dull, cliched folk-blues song, one of the stronger tracks on an album where a blurb advertising powerhouse performances of relatively dull, cliched folk-blues songs could be a sticker on the front cover. I like it a lot but the overall build and sweep of "Stairway" eclipses it in every possible way -- melodically, lyrically, structurally. In my view this is the point in the competition where these blues songs (even "Levee," if I'm being honest) should start dropping -- I personally feel that there is too much musical ingenuity in what remains of the catalog, none of which comes at the expense of strength of performance or interpretation, for these well-executed but still highly derivative songs to still be in the conversation. Easy vote for "Stairway."

[tragabigzanda]

"Babe I'm Gonna Leave You" is a powerhouse performance of a relatively dull, cliched folk-blues song, one of the stronger tracks on an album where a blurb advertising powerhouse performances of relatively dull, cliched folk-blues songs could be a sticker on the front cover. I like it a lot but the overall build and sweep of "Stairway" eclipses it in every possible way -- melodically, lyrically, structurally. In my view this is the point in the competition where these blues songs (even "Levee," if I'm being honest) should start dropping -- I personally feel that there is too much musical ingenuity in what remains of the catalog, none of which comes at the expense of strength of performance or interpretation, for these well-executed but still highly derivative songs to still be in the conversation. Easy vote for "Stairway."

But Communication Breakdown is so much more than the blues, for the record.

[epilogue]

"Babe I'm Gonna Leave You" is a powerhouse performance of a relatively dull, cliched folk-blues song, one of the stronger tracks on an album where a blurb advertising powerhouse performances of relatively dull, cliched folk-blues songs could be a sticker on the front cover. I like it a lot but the overall build and sweep of "Stairway" eclipses it in every possible way -- melodically, lyrically, structurally. In my view this is the point in the competition where these blues songs (even "Levee," if I'm being honest) should start dropping -- I personally feel that there is too much musical ingenuity in what remains of the catalog, none of which comes at the expense of strength of performance or interpretation, for these well-executed but still highly derivative songs to still be in the conversation. Easy vote for "Stairway."

If I ever have a podcast, you're gonna be a frequent guest on it.

[Birds in Hell]

What Kevin said.

Stairway!

[Kevin Davis]

"Babe I'm Gonna Leave You" is a powerhouse performance of a relatively dull, cliched folk-blues song, one of the stronger tracks on an album where a blurb advertising powerhouse performances of relatively dull, cliched folk-blues songs could be a sticker on the front cover. I like it a lot but the overall build and sweep of "Stairway" eclipses it in every possible way -- melodically, lyrically, structurally. In my view this is the point in the competition where these blues songs (even "Levee," if I'm being honest) should start dropping -- I personally feel that there is too much musical ingenuity in what remains of the catalog, none of which comes at the expense of strength of performance or interpretation, for these well-executed but still highly derivative songs to still be in the conversation. Easy vote for "Stairway."

But Communication Breakdown is so much more than the blues, for the record.

Yeah, I definitely wouldn't saddle every song on the album with that label, but it's certainly a recurring theme.

[LoathedVermin72]

Wait, people consider BIGLY to be one of Zep's "blues songs?" I don't hear that at all.

[@SkitchP]

Wait, people consider BIGLY to be one of Zep's "blues songs?" I don't hear that at all.

Yeah, isn't it a Joan Baez folk cover?

[Kevin Davis]

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Babe_I% ... _Leave_You

To me it's a folk song with a lot of prominent blues DNA -- the structure and especially the lyrics ("Gonna leave you woman, I've got to ramble," etc. etc.) are straight from that late-50's-early-60's coffeehouse lineage, where the lines between the two genres were very blurry. Zeppelin obviously give it a crushing rock arrangement, but at some point in the competition something's gotta give. I love both songs. But "Babe" is Zeppelin playing with inherited conventions; "Stairway" is Zeppelin establishing conventions for others to inherit.