Why the End of the Live STAIRWAY TO HEAVEN Solo Sounds Off!

[@revjeffg]

Useless trivia: I saw “Wayne’s World” in the theatre and he actually did play the proper first few notes to “Stairway”. I always suspected the change was due to a licensing issue for home video/broadcast. It was way funnier, obviously 😀

[@TheArtofGuitar]

I saw a clip where it did sound like it but I wasn’t sure what the true version was. Mandela Effect or something. Either way it turned out to be an issue since they eventually changed it I guess.

[@chrisleriche]

Nailed it! - "The "Stairway to Heaven" guitar riff was changed for the international, cable, and videotape releases to a generic riff because of disputes in obtaining rights to the first five notes of the song, which appear only in the U.S. theatrical release. " You were part of history.

[@j_freed]

Yes, I remember it was originally the unplugged guitar you see him playing, which is a mock up of a real 1962. And I even bought the made in Japan Wayne’s World Fender! Excellent!

[@HalfDuck]

@@TheArtofGuitar The original version is lost media, a bunch of people made KZbin videos overdubbing it to show what it would have sounded like though

[@deanaf]

Here it is. kzbin.info/www/bejne/nIbai2CDd7d3ipI

[@DirkRadloff]

Very interesting! I never noticed the difference between the live and the studio-version at that point. The B instead of C is a very musical choice of Page, because it adds even more tension to the underlying Fmaj7 chord. So in this way it creates the most tension at the bar right before the vocals and resolves somehow into the first note of Plant, who starts with an A above Am.

[@jaqueslagerweij6882]

I wish you could make a video about thin lizzy. They are really underrated yet so important.

[@jakewhitmore6046]

One of cliff Burton’s favourite bands

[@HannahCope88]

🤘🏻🔥🤘🏻Congrats on 783k Subscribers! I loved the live performance by Heart when they played this song at the Kennedy center.

[@ericknutson8310]

Those guitars neck dive really hard. I wonder if they made the guitar heavier but pushed the saddle to the up a bit. we could have a fully accessible 22 fret 6 string side. Heck they could pull in the 12 string a bit to balance it out if need be

[@TheArtofGuitar]

Mine doesn't dive at all. It's heavy as hell, but no dive. hehe

[@ericknutson8310]

@@TheArtofGuitar you musta been lucky. The epiphone one was worse, my Gibson does it but slowly. Enough for a good strap to stop

[@Jeff_H_the_Guitarist]

What a cool observation! Nothing gets past you!

[@somethingbl]

Well he says he got it from a comment on the last video, so kinda!

[@chrisrowe2308]

The proper riff to the beginning of Stairway has been restored on the latest 4k blu ray release of WW. Excellent.

[@centerhillcards]

Thats so insightful and just another example of why music is so awesome cause you can always be learning something new. Cool lil video MIke !

[@KingCountyMetroSTC]

I owned the Epiphone version of that guitar for several years, the premium version with glued in set necks like the Gibson. About the only difference I saw was a third toggle switch so that each necks pickup selection was independent. What made me want to eventually sell it was that it was way to easy to pull the necks sharp and out of tune with the least amount of backward pressure on the necks. Sitting down you couldn’t rest your right forearm on the body because you were too likely to cause your left had grip to pull the neck back imperceptibly but enough to hear notes go sharp. Between that and the short necks, I vowed that if I ever have another electric 12 string again, it will be a single neck. The way I was using that guitar was just as easily recreated by playing my acoustic 12 string with pick up. I did one gig with the Epiphone where I played it on stage through a moderately loud amp and 4x12 cab that did sound pretty cool

[@rappy90]

I always just assumed it was a cross Page not really remembering the piece note for note as well as being hopped up on some drugs so he'd just pull off whatever was in key. Never considered it to be a fret issue

[@stevevanscoik398]

I was 14 on the way home from summer camp at Forestburg. This was 1981.I was a little late in discovering Zep.

[@satamique]

i had flash back watching you with that White Gibson double neck, Alex Lifeson playing Xanadu!

[@joeturner7959]

Yes, I also heard that Jimmy played a telecaster in the studio, but he also claimed that live... it was only based on the themes and that it was mostly improvised, if you start to listen to the other live versions besides "The Song Remains The Same" version, you can hear even more improvising, and ... his ES-1375 has much longer strings because his tail pieces are a full 3" further down the body. I learned Stairway, on a bus going to L.A. We were going on a trip to Disneyland, and I heard someone in the back practicing, so I got up and sat beside him, and asked him to show me the song, well, we had 4 hours, so he showed me the intro, and the verses, and the bridges... and the end, so we started to try and figure out the themes to the end solo... I later took guitar lessons from his teacher, and he was very surprised that I had mastered almost the entire song, and when It came to the solo, I would play the themes from Page's SRTS version, and that really surprised the teacher... The SRTS is my favorite version, because we would go and see it every Friday night, for a good 10 months, and later got the DVD. Now, of course, I play guitars at Guitar Center - a LOT. and cover a lot of Led Zeppelin... and every once in a while break into Stairway... and once the manager came by... and I asked him "You don't mind if I play stairway?" and while he was walking away, He said "You have sold 3 high end Les Paul's today, so you can play anything you like... anything." They have never ever said anything since, and I get to play everything. ( except for the SRV strat, because it is a 3M guitar. The other solo, which I warm up with is Howard Leese's solo from Alone... and I heard you play it, and I like your version better. You have mastered it, and added to it in a good way, but not as much a difference that Page made for the stairway solo from LZ-IV to SRTS. But like anything, there used to be only a handful of players that could do a decent job, and now room fulls of guitarists have mastered all aspects. If you ever do a video of Heart's "Steel Wheels," I would love to see it, and learn it.

[@RaspySquares]

I honestly don't remember, but I do remember the first time I heard the outro to Achilles last stand. The riff that started it all.

[@JNNASSER3124]

I play mostly my dc carvins and kiesels. Once was on the lp and had a bit of surprise when i did that look.

[@johnnyfreedom4117]

Good stuff amigo, that kind of insight lends itself to improv, and live vs studio, and how more than one thing can be true. It is about sound, and if it sounds good, it is good, it doesn't matter how you make it.....

[@JoeToeb-zj5qw]

Same problem Don Felder playing his 2nd lick after the chorus where he reaches the 22nd fret on the E and B string on the original recording.

[@lancehall3897]

Cool content. The OCD in me has me thinking, 🤔hmmm, time to break out the plunge router and see if I can open up that bottom cutaway, miss the bottom switch and wiring path and get my fingers to that 20th fret. Too bad it’s not a late model Epi-☎️

[@OAlem]

Or a fingertip extension implant? You only need one. Whatever's less invasive.

[@skeeter197140]

If I'm not mistaken, Stairway to Heaven doesn't span over two tracks. Free Bird by Skynyrd on 8-track did, though. Look at your pic of the Zeppelin 8 track. Stairway to Heaven is all on Track 2.

[@TheArtofGuitar]

I thought you may be right but I did some research just now and found some versions where it’s split over programs 2 and 3. www.ebay.com/itm/174808883115

[@skeeter197140]

@@TheArtofGuitar I stand corrected. And I just watched the video about when you admitted you were wrong, too. I guess I should have researched it myself, before I went off my (increasingly) faulty memory. I just assumed there was only the one version of 8 track. And you know what happens when one assumes....

[@JS_Guitar09]

I used to really want a double neck guitar, but now I don't think I would even use it most of the time. That tele fretboard really messed with me! Those two lines kinda look like thick strings, and I thought that your low E was bent for a second. I was wondering how you were gonna play that thing 🤣

[@petemeyers5342]

I always thought he messed the big moment up on that live version. That’s really interesting.

[@trroland1248]

Loved that beautiful Tele with the shimmering top. 👍🏻

[@klepetar]

oohhh...!!! after all these years.. .. thanks for the video..

[@dillonswihart7067]

Mike your videos have been highly educational as well as entertaining and ive been watching you for a while so thanks for everything you do! seeing you break stuff down so even absolute beginners understand whats going on is great! keep it up.

[@retronemesis7064]

8 Track tapes are the only musical medium that never made a nostalgic comeback because they suck and no one remembers them fondly.

[@matcoffidis1135]

That's very interesting...

[@toddapplegate3988]

Page even talks about it in one of his books. Many of their songs needed large modifications from studio to live. It's not unusual to hear a live version and like it more than the studio or the other way around. Great example is immigrant song which has a few variations and honestly show cases JPJ contribution

[@PolyphonicSigma]

Yeah, and the album version has no guitar solo. The live version always does....

[@BooksForever]

Great looking fretboard on that Fender!

[@gk1771]

I've noticed that difference since the first time I watched The Song Remains the Same. Now I know why.

[@catsofsherman1316]

That's a sweet tele! What kind of wood is that fretboard?

[@thomasfritsch3536]

😎 dude come on don't be apologetic about being nerdy it's what everyone loves about you buddy I'm old use to live in St Paul I just appreciate you as the most talented teacher and the coolest closet nerd 🤓👍 oh and by the way man can you Rock bravo there is nothing to apologize about except maybe volume to your family and neighbor's

[@ChrisOBrien666]

The double neck is also why they play Rain Song in A instead of G because it requires retuning fewer strings in the double neck.

[@GaryHubbs]

You done good bro

[@tedsperos1620]

This was great! I love this stuff

[@MrRockNRoll]

I had no idea, now it makes sense!!

[@Leebabins]

They added Stairway to Heaven back into Wayne's World in the 4k release. It was there initially in the first movie release and removed with subsequent releases.

[@martinrusso409]

That "little nerdy detail" is more interesting than a lot of other topics talked about imo

[@zublacus]

You're welcome! Thanks for the video Mike!!!

[@concretel10n]

I've never liked the song before the solo, but after the solo I think it's one of the best pieces of music going..

[@lyndoncmp5751]

WTF? The first half is gorgeous.

[@DesertRat332]

It took me 3+ years to get into Stairway to Heaven. For the longest time I only enjoyed the solo and the bit after that. Then sometime in 1975 I was hearing it on the ship I was on and suddenly started enjoying the whole song. It took me a while to get into the rest of Led Zeppelin's catalog, but when I fell, I fell HARD!

[@JBrooksNYS]

Love your videos man... keep em coming.

[@trance9158]

Cool facts

[@OAlem]

Another lick Jimmy never plays live is the sliding note after each chorus in Whole Lotta Love "Wanna whole lotta love" waaaaaoh. It sounds backmasked and that is why live he just plays a little jangle "da da dada" which is cool but not as cool. Thoughts?

[@CraigFlowersMusic]

Unwrap your thumb so you can move your whole hand over the fingerboard for the whole lick. It's "improper form," I know, but it works for me.

[@JoeandAngie]

Best RnR concert movie ever. 10th grade. Midnight movies. Tripping movie for sure.

[@turnsufficient4971]

Cool video - I've watched The Song Remains the Same a thousand times and I always wondered why he didn't do that ending bit. Now we know. Excellent channel - I just subscribed. What year is your EDS 1275 ? It's pretty sweet !

[@Skagzy.]

Awesome. You should do more videos like this

[@janneranta7373]

Love the nerdy stuff!

[@tubbers20]

If Page plays it at Guitar Center will they beat him up?

[@Jokesonyou6666]

That telecaster is beautiful i cant get over the wood on that fretboard

[@86cutty442]

hey mike whered u get that guitar??!! that fretboards absolutely insane i need one 😂😂

[@canadamike7461]

That Telecaster is a thing of beauty

[@MercyNoMore]

That fretboard looks amazing. What wood is it?

[@flamethegame1]

Not really related to the vido but thats one GORGEUS Tele. If it had a double humbucker/HSS configuration it couldve been a really good guitar for me heh

[@bonscott6353]

Kinda ironic since they were taken to court by taurus and won.. So in other words you cant copyright the first 3 notes of an A minor chord.

[@Beatypatrockks]

could you put a link for the Rambo shirt you're wearing? Thanks..

[@bryanp8010]

I’ve got the same pale moon tele. I hated so much about it. I was honestly disappointed in it despite being so beautiful. I modded the 💩 out of it n now it’s one of my best axes. Put a 4 way pre-wired angled toggle setup and a babicz bridge; huge improvement on sound and looks. The neck was a total disappointment. The frets would almost cut your hands. I had to do a bit of filing. It always had some serious popping too. Had to sand the inside of the pick guard to solve it. You should see it

[@russlgtr]

Coheeds Sanchez played one of those double necks. Very expensive. Very cool. Sounds like a pain to change strings

[@onusgumboot5565]

I have an Epiphone version with bolt on necks. Very cheap. But it still rocks. It fortunately stays in tune amazingly well. The six string side is the best sounding guitar I have, and the twelve string side with distortion is positively epic. Since I only use it for a half dozen or so songs a night, I don't need to change strings often. But when I do, I open a beer and settle in for the long stretch. I always call it my 18 string.

[@22julip]

Starting off as a fan just started to play guitar watching the movie would have never noticed it was a little off sounded way cool to me the novice. But it makes sense the way you put it . Another guy put out a video about the difficulty in playing the 12 string . How much did your new guitar cost . ? Great video

[@blklrd7932]

That is a beautiful guitar

[@johnnycbad]

I find it odd that they had to change the notes in Wayne's World. The first three notes of Stairway is just an A minor triad. Surely you can't copyright that?

[@joeyjuarez5271]

Can you bend the strings on a 12 string guitar

[@parkerfeatherston]

That tele surprised me for a second there lol, I guess im not used to seeing Mike with a tele

[@tyleigh4309]

Is pulling off to an open e any easier?

[@alanguitars]

That double neck is so cool

[@kkarx]

I don't get it. Why they just didn't make the frets more accessible?

[@143jcm]

that fretboard is so nice

[@johnlemon874]

He sometimes played in an octave lower live

[@michigangreen1915]

I always figured he needed an extra fraction of a second to switch from the 6 to 12 string neck.

[@anthonymitchellalice]

Cool stuff.

[@robgahan2044]

This is the first time I've heard him play it this way, sounds very weird! Anything to be said about just playing it an octave lower?

[@penttikoivuniemi2146]

That's what I would have done. Well, that or tapped the lick, but tapping wasn't really a thing back then.

[@kkarx]

You want to end your solo on a "high note". 😁

[@RawrzillaFilms]

I always thought that when Jimmy Page played the solo live..at least a majority of the time, I thought he was playing the two solos on top of one another by switching back and forth instead, by that I mean, I thought he was playing the main solo and going in and out of the overdubed guitar solo that harmonizes softly in the background during the dominant solo... I swear there's another melody behind that main solo. I know Jimmy was really big on overdubing and all that jazz.... or is this, like, one of the few songs that isn't overdubbed with 3 or 4 different harmonizing arrangements....

[@adambnyc]

I have a question regarding the live version: Why, in later years, did the band played two extra measures before the solo?

[@thecroft6070]

My guess is to allow time to switch between the guitar necks

[@j_freed]

It's Pagey's adaptation to having only one guitar playing live, it sets up the chords you should be imagining under Jimmy's solo.

[@powlperc]

Good minutia

[@crna82002]

Bohemian Rhapsody did the same thing. I can still hear in my mind where it changes tracks!

[@odgeUK]

Marty5150 did a video on this last year, really interesting.

[@thecroft6070]

Not nerdy - fascinating! A solution might have been an Octavia, which was around at the time. But for one small lick that's maybe overkill and would have changed the tone too much. I get the feeling Jimmy was happy enough using his musical guile

[@MreenalMams]

I actually saw the live version before i heard the studio version and hence the studio version always feels a little not up to mark for me.. whereas the live version feels like one of the best things ive ever seen..

[@drcrutch]

I wish you offered a "lifetime" plan--for say $500.00--I bought the year plan and only used it intermittently before the "year" was up....

[@NYR11949]

The Tele is absolutely gorgeous

[@ericajohnson7535]

because not enough frets?

[@DMDvideo10]

Usually it faded out, switched, then faded in...

[@thedr.zeroultrazone984]

How did I know this was going to be your next video? 🙂

[@shawnhelsel923]

Page should have put his foot up on the monitor wedge to lift the guitar up for easier access to the famous solo ending. But I guess TSRTS was performed and recorded back before that big guitar-god move became a thing. Sadly, it was short-lived, nowadays we IEMs, no more stage monitors, no more big guitar gods. 😂

[@burnsZY85]

Why not just play the lick lower down on the neck so you would still be playing the same notes as the studio version.

[@amaruqlonewolf3350]

That grain on your fretboard is going to bust my mind.

[@toblexson5020]

Not the point of this video, but I love that Tele fretboard. That's not Pale Moon Ebony is it?

[@TheArtofGuitar]

It is indeed! :)

[@joedent3323]

He could have just played the same lick on another coupla strings that were reachable. I guess he needed the treble tone of those high strings.

[@BOO_M_CTW]

🔥

[@lamecasuelas2]

I never learned Stairway to heaven......but i Knew a cople of Villa lobos' pieces and Sultans of swing

[@DesertRat332]

For me Stairway to Heaven is a musical version of making love. It starts out slow like foreplay then evolves into a steady rhythm. You really get going as the drum part joins in. The solo is the start of the climax that continues on with the vocal part, reaches its peak at the end, and then drops off slowly and gently into afterglow. Fitting it was at the end of side one on the record so there is only silence when it ends. At 8 minutes it's about the same length of time that it takes for a guy to get off. 😉

[@BoHorn]

…. Its a spiritual journey/think through… of all the the led zeppelin songs to label sexual its probably the least sexual hit.

[@teresathomley3703]

Thanks Mike. That is a bad ass EDS-1275.

[@brianmckenzie1318]

Love these nerdy guitar/song facts and how the artist played the parts!

[@scootinand]

The best version of the Stairway To Heaven solo is from Frank Zappa's live cover where he and his band spend the first 3/4ths of the runtime just taking the absolute piss out of the song, playing it in a reggae rhythm with a bunch of goofy sound effects layered over top, but then getting to the solo and you can almost hear Frank Zappa think to himself "Alright. Yeah. This part is really good" and the horn section joins in with the guitar and just gives (or brings out) a dirty swagger to an already epic sounding lead. And then the vocal delivery at the end of the track with the jump in tempo is just intense... Only to end on the theme song from The Three Stooges. Because it's still Zappa.

[@markushalfmad]

And I always thought that was just another one of those moments JP would make a great sound by hitting the wrong notes.

[@monkeymusic3318]

I sold my double neck because its range sucks, it was never fun to play and became a wall hanger until I finally let it go...

[@blacksheep25251]

Me starting the video: "Not a big Zep fan, but will hear this out and I like the streamwe and OMG THAT FRETBOARD ON THAT TELE!!!!!"

[@guywhoisaguy67676]

I think you are doing the riff too slow and not pinching that last note of choice. It's been my favorite song since it came out, I can't play it, none of it, and heard it more times than I can count. I see all kinds of ways it's played but some parts need to stay the same. I agree that flaw in design is a turn off and issue for most.

[@cerisejones8061]

I am sure the double cut away was slung lower than how ur playing the guitar, plus add in drugs and booze, who cares if page is off is still sounds killer. The whole song remains the same dvd is highly edited. The tracks are cut and sometimes the don’t align with the footage.

[@stefanthorpenberg887]

The reason Page’s solo sounds so off is probably because he had problems to hear the rhythm. Very often on live recordings it sounds like he does not hear the drummer, he plays for himself, and miss the line. Often he also bends out of tune, like Keith Richards.

[@DMDvideo10]

Funny that Led Zepplin is quick with the copyright button when they themselves were guilty of plagiarizing numerous songs early on including Stairway!