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May 05, 2006

Comments

Adam

Oh man the memories. I've had the Australian CD of Stairways to Heaven since I was 16. The Doors version is incredible -- so is the Beatnix one.

mike

this will be fun. thanks for this.

vjb2

I can't believe you left out perhaps the greatest cover of "Stairway" ever recorded: Finnish unicorn-pompadoured, elfen-shoed superstars Leningrad Cowboys, backed by the Soviet Red Army Mens Choir, off their tandem album "Happy Together."

vjb2

Ah. Y'must've slipped it in there while I was typing. Sneaky bastids. Yes, only explanation.

Michael

Hey Ken,
didn't Irwin cut Stairway down to less than a minute?
Is that one here?

Mere

There has been much to love about the WFMU blog. But only now do I bow and grovel before thee. And quote Pratchett:

"and then go down to the docks and hire a troll and tell him to stand in the corner and if anyone else comes in and tries to play 'Pathway to Paradise', I think they said it's called.......he's to pull their head off."
"What about a warning?"
"That will be the warning."

Dave B.

Some small clips, I wish I had the whole thing: http://www.phys.unsw.edu.au/~jw/Stairway.html

The Led Zepplin song "Stairway to Heaven" is a rock classic for some critics. Whether or not you agree, its notoriety is assured by the thousands of would-be guitarists who can play the first dozen bars badly: it is to the guitar what "Chopsticks" is to the piano. But what if Jimmy Page & Robert Plant hadn't written it? What if it had been written for orchestra in the 19th or 20th centuries? For a publicity stunt, "The Stairway Suite" was commisioned by the University of New South Wales Orchestra and written by Joe Wolfe. The clips below are from the original performance by UNSWO, with Colin Piper conducting. Recording engineer: Emery Schubert.

norelpref

Last year I strung excerpts from different versions of SWTH into one file.

Stare weigh 2 heaven

Neal Burgess

Okay for the record, that's not the Mothers of Invention playing it. It's the Best Band You Never Heard In Your Life. Frank dropped the Mothers name in the 70's and toured under his own name for the remainder of his career. Most frequently he would refer to the backing band as the Rockin' Teenage Combo. And no, Frank did not do his best stuff in the late 60's.

Listener Sharon

God bless you Ken Freedman!!!!!!

After a week of IRS woes, income malfunction, dental misery, a 10 alarm fire in my nabe and continuous snotty adolescent daughter attitude I am sitting here with a beatific smile on my face.

fishspawned


i salute you

i am searching my old cassette tapes to find a STH version i had accidentally taped off of the radio in the 80s by this band called the Power Generation - a total 80s synth out. crossing my fingers i can find it. perhaps someone has it out there?

Dagger

o mi god!

lou

Lenigrad Cowboys is the coolest version, The hard-Ons is the funniest. The Dutch cat's backwards version is awesome.He reminded me a bit of Gary Oldman playing the role of a deaf rock and roller. Oh wait, he did that in Immortal Beloved...

Lukas

Here is another one, ingeniously fucked up by Venetian Snares and Speedranch, from their CD Making Orange Things: They call it Halfway Up The Stairway Of Mucus (MP3).

Lukas

OK, one more, found in the dusty corners of an external hard drive: Splice of Life Inc - Spliceway to Heaven (MP3).

Rev. Marc Time

Everyone knows that these guys stole "Stairway" from the main riff in Spirit's "Taurus" from the first Spirit LP.

patrick

amazing , funny
i'm collecting the covers of the most important rock song if you are more I take mail me please
thank !!!!!

Gravedigger

I have at least two more versions but don't know how to post them.
Frank Zappa and Boston Pops

Al

There is, I believe, a version by "Me First and the Gimme Gimmes" around. But I don't have it to supply you.

dare

Frank Zappa is the founder of the "Mothers of Invention"...

A.I.

A cabbage is a "vegetable"...

Gravedigger

The 911 and the Cayenne are different cars but they're both Porsche ;-)
Frank Zappa had another version different to the one with Mothers of Invention.

Al

Unless you're counting the original, which isn't listed for download, there are, at this time, only 55 versions, not 56.

Penguin_Biker

theres a great version of it by Millish http://millish.com/listen.html

mediocre

I have 10 different versions of Stairway by Zappa...seems like it was a regular on one of his tours

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