Does anyone remember laughter?
June 8, 2014 8:39 AM Subscribe
This song (based on the literature of Tolkien) will change your life. Almost Famous - Stairway to Heaven - Deleted Scene.
previously
previously
Wait. The whole song? I'm sure it's great, but at my age I've heard that one enough. How about something off Presence?
posted by clvrmnky at 9:27 AM on June 8, 2014 [6 favorites]
posted by clvrmnky at 9:27 AM on June 8, 2014 [6 favorites]
good thing they deleted the scene.
posted by valdesm at 9:37 AM on June 8, 2014 [5 favorites]
posted by valdesm at 9:37 AM on June 8, 2014 [5 favorites]
Led Zeppelin IV by Erik Davis.
It is the 4th song on the 4th album by a quartet and an evocation by which they assert their rock godhood. It was like the most important thing ever for Page and Plant before you all heard it 2000 times on commercial radio.
posted by bukvich at 10:16 AM on June 8, 2014 [1 favorite]
It is the 4th song on the 4th album by a quartet and an evocation by which they assert their rock godhood. It was like the most important thing ever for Page and Plant before you all heard it 2000 times on commercial radio.
posted by bukvich at 10:16 AM on June 8, 2014 [1 favorite]
Frances McDormand is so good in that movie.
posted by octothorpe at 10:29 AM on June 8, 2014 [8 favorites]
posted by octothorpe at 10:29 AM on June 8, 2014 [8 favorites]
Oi! This song has been played to death, yes, but you can't deny its importance, nor its power. (I won't get into the copyright violation issue here except to say that it's legally established that Zeppelin did take other people's musical material quite often.)
Do note that this song was the most requested song in the 1970s - not only that, but I was told by a reliable source in the industry at the time that there was at least a three-year period where it was the most requested song on every pop music radio station in the US and Canada.
Such a song could never manage to hit the pop charts these days. Like "Bohemian Rhapsody", it's simply too long, too complicated, has too many changes.
Back in the day (off my lawn, etc), we'd buy a new record and have friends over and we'd all just sit there and listen, just listen to one side of an album, take a break and then turn it over and listen to the other side. Getting records was a big deal because there was simply no other way to listen to music unless it happened to come on the radio, and records were expensive - we'd buy cassette tapes and slowly copy records to them in real-time. But there wasn't that much else to do - you couldn't see movies unless they showed up in a local cinema or occasionally on TV (and that was generally a Big Deal), you couldn't play video games unless you went to an arcade (but they always had pinball too, still a great game) and if you wanted to read something, you either bought or borrowed a book or purchased a magazine or newspaper (no free papers back then) - so there was quantitatively a lot less stuff available to you, perhaps as little as 1% of what
And this was the most popular song from that era. It's undergone concentrated and attentive listening, perhaps more than any other song, ever.
---
Funny that this comes up, because I had an interesting Stairway-related experience recently. I "lost" all my playlists - which is to say that I had them all backed up but when I completely rebuilt my machine I realized it would be too much effort to recover them so they worked on the new machine - so I started randomizing over my full 250 days of music rather than a selected subset of 50 days or so. There was a lot of stuff that I got rid of from my main playlist - I have a ton of spoken word, for example, and I can't work to that - but I found all sorts of things I had no idea that I had.
In particular - and I have NO idea how I got even ONE of these songs - I seem to have almost a dozen very distinctive covers of Stairway To Heaven, almost all without any metainformation at all. There are covers:
* In the style of the B52s doing "Rock Lobster".
* In the style of the Doors doing "When The Music's Over".
* In the style of the Beatles doing "I Wanna Hold Your Hand".
* The legendary "Stairway to Gilligan's Island" (1978!)
* In a lounge style.
* Covered by Rolf Harris.
* Covered by Sandra Hahn.
* Covered by Pat Boone.
* As an inspirational speech.
* As Islands flavored electronic dance music version.
* As a finger-picking bluegrass song (my friend who worked in a guitar store in the 70s had such an arrangement back in the day).
* As an electro reggae version.
* As a 40s big-band style version.
* An accordion version.
* A choir version.
Now I've gone through all of these, it must be someone's deliberate collection - but whose? How did I get it? The sound quality is very variable and often poor, it can't be a commercial release...
posted by lupus_yonderboy at 10:40 AM on June 8, 2014 [9 favorites]
Do note that this song was the most requested song in the 1970s - not only that, but I was told by a reliable source in the industry at the time that there was at least a three-year period where it was the most requested song on every pop music radio station in the US and Canada.
Such a song could never manage to hit the pop charts these days. Like "Bohemian Rhapsody", it's simply too long, too complicated, has too many changes.
Back in the day (off my lawn, etc), we'd buy a new record and have friends over and we'd all just sit there and listen, just listen to one side of an album, take a break and then turn it over and listen to the other side. Getting records was a big deal because there was simply no other way to listen to music unless it happened to come on the radio, and records were expensive - we'd buy cassette tapes and slowly copy records to them in real-time. But there wasn't that much else to do - you couldn't see movies unless they showed up in a local cinema or occasionally on TV (and that was generally a Big Deal), you couldn't play video games unless you went to an arcade (but they always had pinball too, still a great game) and if you wanted to read something, you either bought or borrowed a book or purchased a magazine or newspaper (no free papers back then) - so there was quantitatively a lot less stuff available to you, perhaps as little as 1% of what
And this was the most popular song from that era. It's undergone concentrated and attentive listening, perhaps more than any other song, ever.
---
Funny that this comes up, because I had an interesting Stairway-related experience recently. I "lost" all my playlists - which is to say that I had them all backed up but when I completely rebuilt my machine I realized it would be too much effort to recover them so they worked on the new machine - so I started randomizing over my full 250 days of music rather than a selected subset of 50 days or so. There was a lot of stuff that I got rid of from my main playlist - I have a ton of spoken word, for example, and I can't work to that - but I found all sorts of things I had no idea that I had.
In particular - and I have NO idea how I got even ONE of these songs - I seem to have almost a dozen very distinctive covers of Stairway To Heaven, almost all without any metainformation at all. There are covers:
* In the style of the B52s doing "Rock Lobster".
* In the style of the Doors doing "When The Music's Over".
* In the style of the Beatles doing "I Wanna Hold Your Hand".
* The legendary "Stairway to Gilligan's Island" (1978!)
* In a lounge style.
* Covered by Rolf Harris.
* Covered by Sandra Hahn.
* Covered by Pat Boone.
* As an inspirational speech.
* As Islands flavored electronic dance music version.
* As a finger-picking bluegrass song (my friend who worked in a guitar store in the 70s had such an arrangement back in the day).
* As an electro reggae version.
* As a 40s big-band style version.
* An accordion version.
* A choir version.
Now I've gone through all of these, it must be someone's deliberate collection - but whose? How did I get it? The sound quality is very variable and often poor, it can't be a commercial release...
posted by lupus_yonderboy at 10:40 AM on June 8, 2014 [9 favorites]
There is no universe in which this charming but bloated scene makes it into the final cut of the film, regardless of whether Zeppelin sells the rights.
posted by bowline at 10:42 AM on June 8, 2014 [10 favorites]
posted by bowline at 10:42 AM on June 8, 2014 [10 favorites]
My wife and I adore this film. When the Director's Cut first came out, I purchased it to replace my well viewed bare bones DVD and, a few weeks later, had a robbery of my whole DVD collection before I had a chance to watch it. Years later, I borrowed a copy and finally got to see it. It may be that my memory of the original cut was just too ingrained, but the extra scenes added nothing. That goes double for this one, sadly.
posted by AlonzoMosleyFBI at 10:45 AM on June 8, 2014
posted by AlonzoMosleyFBI at 10:45 AM on June 8, 2014
Shit. "Stairway" is just one of those songs I wish so badly I could hear again through the ears of a teenager listening to it for the first time, instead of a cynical adult hearing it for the eleventy thousandth time. This scene came as close to that as anything ever could.
I fucking love this movie. And I loved the director's cut (the "Penny's birthday" scene is terrific). And Frances McDormand, omg.
posted by naoko at 11:01 AM on June 8, 2014 [5 favorites]
I fucking love this movie. And I loved the director's cut (the "Penny's birthday" scene is terrific). And Frances McDormand, omg.
posted by naoko at 11:01 AM on June 8, 2014 [5 favorites]
I think, if this scene had been included, it is the ONLY time in the movie where an entire song is played while people just sit and listen.
You might quibble over the semantics of "just sit & listen" but I see it as a bookend paired with Tiny Dancer. They both pull you into themselves until you're fully involved in them along with the cast. I definitely feel it added something.
posted by scalefree at 11:01 AM on June 8, 2014 [1 favorite]
You might quibble over the semantics of "just sit & listen" but I see it as a bookend paired with Tiny Dancer. They both pull you into themselves until you're fully involved in them along with the cast. I definitely feel it added something.
posted by scalefree at 11:01 AM on June 8, 2014 [1 favorite]
I liked the movie because living vicariously etc, but it's not easy to pull off having a well known 6 minute rock hit play entirely on a movie, and that scene does not accomplish it. It's like a big joke and McDormand's character is the only one in on it (what the fuck is going on in my living room).
they had Philip Seymour Hoffman in the movie. playing Lester Bangs. just saying.
posted by valdesm at 11:03 AM on June 8, 2014 [1 favorite]
they had Philip Seymour Hoffman in the movie. playing Lester Bangs. just saying.
posted by valdesm at 11:03 AM on June 8, 2014 [1 favorite]
There is no universe in which this charming but bloated scene makes it into the final cut of the film, regardless of whether Zeppelin sells the rights.
oh, I don't know. In a universe where movies like Zardoz or Gummo got made at all, it seems that anything is possible.
I love this scene at the same time that I'm glad it didn't get shoe-horned into a movie where it didn't belong. What I love about it is how well it captures the early 1970s phenomenon that Stairway To Heaven was. People really did just sit down and listen to it over and over again, and when those drums came crashing in about halfway through -- that was powerful-beautiful-dramatic-affirming every time. It's also worth noting, the whole dissonance between mom and son is something I completely relate to having tried vainly to turn my parents onto all manner of "important" music when I was in my early/mid teens. I finally gave up. Their loss.
As for Stairway, I eventually grew very tired of it to the point of violent allergy and I doubt I intentionally listened to it for better part of 25 years. The recent Kennedy Center performance by Heart etc changed all that.
But the lyrics remain a little suspect.
posted by philip-random at 11:11 AM on June 8, 2014 [3 favorites]
oh, I don't know. In a universe where movies like Zardoz or Gummo got made at all, it seems that anything is possible.
I love this scene at the same time that I'm glad it didn't get shoe-horned into a movie where it didn't belong. What I love about it is how well it captures the early 1970s phenomenon that Stairway To Heaven was. People really did just sit down and listen to it over and over again, and when those drums came crashing in about halfway through -- that was powerful-beautiful-dramatic-affirming every time. It's also worth noting, the whole dissonance between mom and son is something I completely relate to having tried vainly to turn my parents onto all manner of "important" music when I was in my early/mid teens. I finally gave up. Their loss.
As for Stairway, I eventually grew very tired of it to the point of violent allergy and I doubt I intentionally listened to it for better part of 25 years. The recent Kennedy Center performance by Heart etc changed all that.
But the lyrics remain a little suspect.
posted by philip-random at 11:11 AM on June 8, 2014 [3 favorites]
The first song I ever slow danced to with a girl. Good times.
posted by blue_beetle at 11:56 AM on June 8, 2014 [1 favorite]
posted by blue_beetle at 11:56 AM on June 8, 2014 [1 favorite]
Stairway to Heaven, while a good song, is much too long to say, play for your 10th grade English class to make a point. Pick something from III.
posted by Sphinx at 12:12 PM on June 8, 2014 [1 favorite]
posted by Sphinx at 12:12 PM on June 8, 2014 [1 favorite]
Now I've gone through all of these, it must be someone's deliberate collection - but whose?
There was an Australian TV show called The Money or the Gun, where every week a different artist did a cover of Stairway to Heaven. They were released on a compilation CD (to tie in with the unexpected hit that Rolf Harris' version became), which I have somewhere. That must be what you have.
posted by Grangousier at 12:13 PM on June 8, 2014 [3 favorites]
There was an Australian TV show called The Money or the Gun, where every week a different artist did a cover of Stairway to Heaven. They were released on a compilation CD (to tie in with the unexpected hit that Rolf Harris' version became), which I have somewhere. That must be what you have.
posted by Grangousier at 12:13 PM on June 8, 2014 [3 favorites]
Now I've gone through all of these, it must be someone's deliberate collection - but whose?
I've got a ton of these as well, as the result of some blog-type post that made the rounds with a lot of erratically sourced download links... It's long gone now but given your playlist and the quality issue I suspect it was this ( this was quite a few years back, theses days such things tend to link YouTube vids). I have similarly sourced, equally lost to the Great Webhole compilations of Hallelujah and ( my personal fave) Ghost Riders in the Sky.
posted by nanojath at 12:30 PM on June 8, 2014 [1 favorite]
I've got a ton of these as well, as the result of some blog-type post that made the rounds with a lot of erratically sourced download links... It's long gone now but given your playlist and the quality issue I suspect it was this ( this was quite a few years back, theses days such things tend to link YouTube vids). I have similarly sourced, equally lost to the Great Webhole compilations of Hallelujah and ( my personal fave) Ghost Riders in the Sky.
posted by nanojath at 12:30 PM on June 8, 2014 [1 favorite]
There's also WFMU's Stairways to Heaven, Stairways to Hell which has 101 covers, which seems to have most of the covers from your list. Could have been a subset someone curated from that.
posted by sysinfo at 12:31 PM on June 8, 2014 [3 favorites]
posted by sysinfo at 12:31 PM on June 8, 2014 [3 favorites]
While we're at it, The Beatles/"I Want To Hold Your Hand"-styled cover of "Stairway" from The Money or the Gun is my favorite.
posted by Strange Interlude at 12:34 PM on June 8, 2014
posted by Strange Interlude at 12:34 PM on June 8, 2014
I think, if this scene had been included, it is the ONLY time in the movie where an entire song is played while people just sit and listen.
I think it is a pity they took it out. Acting is reacting, after all. The climactic scene to The Dead is just Angelica Huston listening to a man singing a song, and it's just lovely to watch her listen.
posted by Bunny Ultramod at 12:34 PM on June 8, 2014 [2 favorites]
I think it is a pity they took it out. Acting is reacting, after all. The climactic scene to The Dead is just Angelica Huston listening to a man singing a song, and it's just lovely to watch her listen.
posted by Bunny Ultramod at 12:34 PM on June 8, 2014 [2 favorites]
In the 10-year anniversary issue of Rolling Stone magazine (some month in 1978), staff writers listed their top ten favorite records. A very-young Cameron Crowe, when he mentioned this record [Led Zeppelin 1], described it best:
'This album, when I was a horny college freshman, brought paranoid misogyny to me when I needed it most'.
posted by telstar at 12:55 PM on June 8, 2014
'This album, when I was a horny college freshman, brought paranoid misogyny to me when I needed it most'.
posted by telstar at 12:55 PM on June 8, 2014
This scene is completely uncomfortable to watch. Like embarrassing-squirmy. Eep.
Also I don't know that Stairway is really a song that people hear deliberately for the first time. I know it played constantly, like several times a day, on the classic rock stations that were part of the background of my childhood. I mean, the other day I went to a mommy-and-me music class where half the music was Beatles tunes. This is folk music now (in the truest sense of the phrase) rather than transcendental experiences.
posted by PhoBWanKenobi at 1:00 PM on June 8, 2014 [1 favorite]
Also I don't know that Stairway is really a song that people hear deliberately for the first time. I know it played constantly, like several times a day, on the classic rock stations that were part of the background of my childhood. I mean, the other day I went to a mommy-and-me music class where half the music was Beatles tunes. This is folk music now (in the truest sense of the phrase) rather than transcendental experiences.
posted by PhoBWanKenobi at 1:00 PM on June 8, 2014 [1 favorite]
One of the defining moments of my life was 15 years or so ago when I was in my friend's car and we were listening to the then brand new Led Zeppelin BBC sessions boxed set. I don't remember much about the rest of the tracks but "Stairway" stood out. It may have been the first recorded performance of the song.
They start and there are no cheers. No "wooooo"s. Not even applause of recognition because no one in the audience had heard the song before. The band was very tight, with none of the sloppiness that would define later years. You could tell they didn't yet have a love/hate relationship with the song. It was a towering performance. They came to the end, "She's buy-ing a stair-air-way to heav-en." Silence, followed by polite applause.
My friend and I also applauded politely, mocking the studio audience. I quip, in a terrible British accent, "It's a nice song. You'll never hear it on the radio, though." We almost wrecked from how hard we laughed.
posted by ob1quixote at 1:38 PM on June 8, 2014 [3 favorites]
They start and there are no cheers. No "wooooo"s. Not even applause of recognition because no one in the audience had heard the song before. The band was very tight, with none of the sloppiness that would define later years. You could tell they didn't yet have a love/hate relationship with the song. It was a towering performance. They came to the end, "She's buy-ing a stair-air-way to heav-en." Silence, followed by polite applause.
My friend and I also applauded politely, mocking the studio audience. I quip, in a terrible British accent, "It's a nice song. You'll never hear it on the radio, though." We almost wrecked from how hard we laughed.
posted by ob1quixote at 1:38 PM on June 8, 2014 [3 favorites]
70s teen here. Sometime in the early 70s, my mother went off on one too many rants on how the songs she heard on "my" radio stations were just repetitive crap. Never mind the songs she adored from her era, which I heard ad nauseam from the goddamn Lawrence Welk show, all had repetitive choruses. So I dug out my already well-worn copy of LZ IV and handed her the inner sleeve, which had the lyrics to Stairway. "Try to figure out what the name of that song is." Of course, she couldn't until she pulled out the actual vinyl and searched the song titles. But I never heard her complain about repeating choruses in "my" music again. Thanks Zeppelin for winning an important teen battle.
posted by Ber at 1:58 PM on June 8, 2014 [3 favorites]
posted by Ber at 1:58 PM on June 8, 2014 [3 favorites]
There is no universe in which this charming but bloated scene makes it into the final cut of the film, regardless of whether Zeppelin sells the rights.
It's really because Spirit wouldn't sell the rights. Not that they had a chance.
posted by kirkaracha at 3:15 PM on June 8, 2014
There is no universe in which this charming but bloated scene makes it into the final cut of the film, regardless of whether Zeppelin sells the rights.
100% true. Any good editor would have cut this fat out.
posted by dobbs at 4:33 PM on June 8, 2014
100% true. Any good editor would have cut this fat out.
posted by dobbs at 4:33 PM on June 8, 2014
They didn't have the rights to use this song, and they had to cut the scene.
The description of the video mentions how the scene was included as an extra on some DVD release of it -- I want to say Untitled, but I am not positive -- but because of the rights situation, the scene appeared without the music. I saw it years ago. It unfolds as you see here, with them sitting in polite silence, Frances McDormand beginning to speak but being cut off by the (inaudible) vocals, the guy in green enthusiastically playing air drums to nothing at all. It really is quite funny.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 4:34 PM on June 8, 2014
The description of the video mentions how the scene was included as an extra on some DVD release of it -- I want to say Untitled, but I am not positive -- but because of the rights situation, the scene appeared without the music. I saw it years ago. It unfolds as you see here, with them sitting in polite silence, Frances McDormand beginning to speak but being cut off by the (inaudible) vocals, the guy in green enthusiastically playing air drums to nothing at all. It really is quite funny.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 4:34 PM on June 8, 2014
Frances McDonald's facial expressions in this scene are wonderful.
posted by arcticseal at 4:37 PM on June 8, 2014 [1 favorite]
posted by arcticseal at 4:37 PM on June 8, 2014 [1 favorite]
100% true. Any good editor would have cut this fat out
The scene was edited by Joe Hutshing And/or Saar Klein, ans it sounds as though it was only left out because of rights issues.
They're good editors. And it shows in the scene.
posted by Bunny Ultramod at 5:36 PM on June 8, 2014 [3 favorites]
The scene was edited by Joe Hutshing And/or Saar Klein, ans it sounds as though it was only left out because of rights issues.
They're good editors. And it shows in the scene.
posted by Bunny Ultramod at 5:36 PM on June 8, 2014 [3 favorites]
I love Led Zeppelin, I really do. But there's this whole thing built up around Stairway where it's supposed to be (according to the Klassic Rawk radio Stations' TOP 500 ROCK SONGS OF ALL TIME JULY 4th COUNTDOWN for the last couple of decades) the Greatest Rock Song Ever. And no. It's not even Led Zeppelin's best song. It's not even the best song on that side of that album.
posted by Cookiebastard at 5:40 PM on June 8, 2014 [2 favorites]
posted by Cookiebastard at 5:40 PM on June 8, 2014 [2 favorites]
As a scene, it adds nothing to the narrative that we need. Which isn't to say that it isn't well played or edited itself, just that when putting together a two-hour movie you should only include that which is necessary. It's indulgent, and while McDormand does the best of the cast in many ways with what is inarguably a thankless role, and this the most thankless of all scenes for that character, that still leaves it as a dreadful and awkward dramatization of an experience which really does not need to be the entire length of the song to communicate.
(I'm also a tiny bit skeptical that the air guitar/keyboard stuff was really that common. I didn't encounter it much myself until the 1980s.)
Anyway, it's a film that I can enjoy watching but it really isn't that good. It's a bildungsroman that takes itself too seriously and without the really tempered consideration of age. And whatever happened to Patrick Fugit anyway? Not to mention Kate Hudson (except it looks like she has four movies coming out, good for her). But aside from bits like PSH as Bangs the film is not much more than a fun romp through the idea of being on a rock tour.
posted by dhartung at 6:04 PM on June 8, 2014
(I'm also a tiny bit skeptical that the air guitar/keyboard stuff was really that common. I didn't encounter it much myself until the 1980s.)
Anyway, it's a film that I can enjoy watching but it really isn't that good. It's a bildungsroman that takes itself too seriously and without the really tempered consideration of age. And whatever happened to Patrick Fugit anyway? Not to mention Kate Hudson (except it looks like she has four movies coming out, good for her). But aside from bits like PSH as Bangs the film is not much more than a fun romp through the idea of being on a rock tour.
posted by dhartung at 6:04 PM on June 8, 2014
lupus_yonderboy: we'd buy cassette tapes and slowly copy records to them in real-time
Ha! Bloody luxury!
When I was a gel with only enough disposable income to buy singles and EPs, I had to rush home from high school every afternoon for days, to set up a portable reel-to-reel and place the mike in front of the radio and catch Ward "Pally" Austin playing a daily track from Hendrix's brand new "Are You Experienced" album on 2UW. Had to run to catch the early train, I tell you, instead of dawdling in the dress shops. Run to get in the door and tune to the station ... it was some years before I got to hear the opening notes of some of those songs.
So, ah, get off my lawn and come in for a cuppa, I'll tell you all about black & white TV.
posted by valetta at 7:38 PM on June 8, 2014 [1 favorite]
Ha! Bloody luxury!
When I was a gel with only enough disposable income to buy singles and EPs, I had to rush home from high school every afternoon for days, to set up a portable reel-to-reel and place the mike in front of the radio and catch Ward "Pally" Austin playing a daily track from Hendrix's brand new "Are You Experienced" album on 2UW. Had to run to catch the early train, I tell you, instead of dawdling in the dress shops. Run to get in the door and tune to the station ... it was some years before I got to hear the opening notes of some of those songs.
So, ah, get off my lawn and come in for a cuppa, I'll tell you all about black & white TV.
posted by valetta at 7:38 PM on June 8, 2014 [1 favorite]
(I'm also a tiny bit skeptical that the air guitar/keyboard stuff was really that common. I didn't encounter it much myself until the 1980s.)
it was definitely common in suburban Vancouver. When I was maybe fifteen, we'd make a night of it. Some cheap whiskey, Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin, early Queen 8-tracks ... with evidence of vomit generally found in the hungover morning.
It's not even Led Zeppelin's best song.
Too true. And the only one they ripped off here was God.
posted by philip-random at 7:55 PM on June 8, 2014 [1 favorite]
it was definitely common in suburban Vancouver. When I was maybe fifteen, we'd make a night of it. Some cheap whiskey, Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin, early Queen 8-tracks ... with evidence of vomit generally found in the hungover morning.
It's not even Led Zeppelin's best song.
Too true. And the only one they ripped off here was God.
posted by philip-random at 7:55 PM on June 8, 2014 [1 favorite]
As a scene, it adds nothing to the narrative that we need.
That makes sense if you think movies are perfect pieces of clockwork, where every single thing in it must add to the narrative or be discarded. That's one theory of film, a popular one, and, I think, a tedious one.
Film can be many things. It can be machines of pleasure. This scene gave me pleasure. Therefore, it has cause to exist.
posted by Bunny Ultramod at 8:28 PM on June 8, 2014 [2 favorites]
That makes sense if you think movies are perfect pieces of clockwork, where every single thing in it must add to the narrative or be discarded. That's one theory of film, a popular one, and, I think, a tedious one.
Film can be many things. It can be machines of pleasure. This scene gave me pleasure. Therefore, it has cause to exist.
posted by Bunny Ultramod at 8:28 PM on June 8, 2014 [2 favorites]
It's not even Led Zeppelin's best song.
Too true. And the only one they ripped off here was God.
There are songs Led Zeppelin have made that can present a strong argument for being better than Stairway. Those songs that can challenge Stairway hit you hard in many ways - some like a bolt of lightning, some roll over you like an unstoppable steamroller or doom, or even just hit you in that spot in your heart that just makes you want to lay on the floor. The intensity of those songs are unquestionable.
However, where those other tracks are an event, Stairway stands alone in somehow creating an entire life, shown right on the cusp of an entirely life-changing journey that is unlike anything they knew or could prepare for. It's significance and relevance returns at many stages of one's life, when those pivotal moments where your life and how you see it changes completely. In the tales of Tolkien, each character faces several enormous changes from a world they knew and understood and thought was stable, to a world with an uncertain future that must be fought for, and the knowledge that their wistful yearnings to return to the way it was is impossible, and what lies ahead is unknowable, there is comfort in knowing that whatever the future brings will be met head-on and eyes open. So it is in the moment portrayed in Stairway - the moment that one looks back for a moment just before beginning of a journey that holds adventure, tragedy, wonder, loss, love, and all the rest.
And that is why Stairway is their best creation.
posted by chambers at 8:34 PM on June 8, 2014 [5 favorites]
Too true. And the only one they ripped off here was God.
There are songs Led Zeppelin have made that can present a strong argument for being better than Stairway. Those songs that can challenge Stairway hit you hard in many ways - some like a bolt of lightning, some roll over you like an unstoppable steamroller or doom, or even just hit you in that spot in your heart that just makes you want to lay on the floor. The intensity of those songs are unquestionable.
However, where those other tracks are an event, Stairway stands alone in somehow creating an entire life, shown right on the cusp of an entirely life-changing journey that is unlike anything they knew or could prepare for. It's significance and relevance returns at many stages of one's life, when those pivotal moments where your life and how you see it changes completely. In the tales of Tolkien, each character faces several enormous changes from a world they knew and understood and thought was stable, to a world with an uncertain future that must be fought for, and the knowledge that their wistful yearnings to return to the way it was is impossible, and what lies ahead is unknowable, there is comfort in knowing that whatever the future brings will be met head-on and eyes open. So it is in the moment portrayed in Stairway - the moment that one looks back for a moment just before beginning of a journey that holds adventure, tragedy, wonder, loss, love, and all the rest.
And that is why Stairway is their best creation.
posted by chambers at 8:34 PM on June 8, 2014 [5 favorites]
Jimmy Page has said Achilles Last Stand is his favorite Led Zeppelin song.
posted by lagomorphius at 8:58 PM on June 8, 2014 [2 favorites]
posted by lagomorphius at 8:58 PM on June 8, 2014 [2 favorites]
... like an unstoppable steamroller
For example, "Kashmir", which I just enjoyed again from the link kindly posted above. That riff rolls over like Beethoven. (Hang on, did they pinch it from him?)
Your argument for the significance of "Stairway" is persuasive. I always dismissed the lyrics as English-hippie-folkie-myth-mash - which by the way would make a great word in German - lightweight, lifted to greatness by great musicianship. Chances are good I never caught all the words. I will take another look, thank you.
posted by valetta at 9:17 PM on June 8, 2014
For example, "Kashmir", which I just enjoyed again from the link kindly posted above. That riff rolls over like Beethoven. (Hang on, did they pinch it from him?)
Your argument for the significance of "Stairway" is persuasive. I always dismissed the lyrics as English-hippie-folkie-myth-mash - which by the way would make a great word in German - lightweight, lifted to greatness by great musicianship. Chances are good I never caught all the words. I will take another look, thank you.
posted by valetta at 9:17 PM on June 8, 2014
Although hearing Stairway To Heaven through a massive theater sound system (possibly remixed into surround) with a bunch of other people would probably be breathtaking.
Yeah, it was. and I don't even like Led Zep. But the movie theater brought in extra sound gear for 4 Track Stereo Dolby and that was the rock action of the week.
posted by charlie don't surf at 10:14 PM on June 8, 2014
Yeah, it was. and I don't even like Led Zep. But the movie theater brought in extra sound gear for 4 Track Stereo Dolby and that was the rock action of the week.
posted by charlie don't surf at 10:14 PM on June 8, 2014
This scene gave me pleasure. Therefore, it has cause to exist.
The contention is that no matter how good the scene is, it would have made the movie worse, and therefore the decision to cut it was correct.
'Kill your babies', etc.
posted by Sebmojo at 10:22 PM on June 8, 2014 [1 favorite]
The contention is that no matter how good the scene is, it would have made the movie worse, and therefore the decision to cut it was correct.
'Kill your babies', etc.
posted by Sebmojo at 10:22 PM on June 8, 2014 [1 favorite]
Love the film; glad they didn't include that scene. Too long. Tedious.
posted by Decani at 1:56 AM on June 9, 2014
posted by Decani at 1:56 AM on June 9, 2014
The facial expressions are just so wonderful in the scene.
Frances McDormand is golden.
But there's something about Patrick Fugit, and that he wants her so desperately to embrace the Zep and he's got that ear-to-ear grin because OMG the song is slamming and he's playing air drums and DAMN MOM get into it, and she's not really getting into it but she's also not leaving the room so maybe there's some hope there but AS WE WIND ON DOWN THE ROAD come on mom, feel the power of the song. Even if you don't play air guitar, be a part of the awesomeness that is Led Zep.
But, no.
Ugh. It kills me.
posted by kinetic at 3:34 AM on June 9, 2014
Frances McDormand is golden.
But there's something about Patrick Fugit, and that he wants her so desperately to embrace the Zep and he's got that ear-to-ear grin because OMG the song is slamming and he's playing air drums and DAMN MOM get into it, and she's not really getting into it but she's also not leaving the room so maybe there's some hope there but AS WE WIND ON DOWN THE ROAD come on mom, feel the power of the song. Even if you don't play air guitar, be a part of the awesomeness that is Led Zep.
But, no.
Ugh. It kills me.
posted by kinetic at 3:34 AM on June 9, 2014
lagomorphius: "Jimmy Page has said Achilles Last Stand is his favourite Led Zeppelin song."
Today I learned that I have something in common with Jimmy Freaking Page.
posted by namewithoutwords at 4:46 AM on June 9, 2014
Today I learned that I have something in common with Jimmy Freaking Page.
posted by namewithoutwords at 4:46 AM on June 9, 2014
I might have gone with "Moby Dick." Subject the audience to that for fifteen mystifying minutes, and then the arm on the turntable picks up and Frances McDormand says, "Melville?"
posted by steef at 5:27 AM on June 9, 2014 [1 favorite]
posted by steef at 5:27 AM on June 9, 2014 [1 favorite]
So "Stairway to Heaven" will always be associated with being thirteen at summer camp in a cabin full of girls approximately one year older (but seemingly light years more sophisticated) in the thick, salty humidity of the North Carolina cast in July. That was the year pretty much everybody started smoking all the time and the fact that everyone had (illicit) lighters meant that there were lots of pyromaniacal experiments, largely involving hairspray, and some resulting in various designs (including crude attempts at the "Zoso" symbol being literally burned into the cabin floor). This particular girl Anna was obsessed with "Stairway to Heaven" after one of the boys in the next cabin dumped her and she spent one whole rainy weekend crying and listening to "Stairway" over and over again for two days straight, until she finally packed herself off to the infirmary after another several of us threatened to break her nose with her stupid peach boom box and send her Led Zepellin IV tape to a watery grave. When she got back from the infirmary, she'd moved on to "Wish You Were Here" and eventually she cried so much the counselors sent her home and we all breathed a sigh of relief and celebrated the end of her reign of musical terror with lots of Violent Femmes and De La Soul.
For years afterward I thought I hated Led Zeppelin. I blamed the summer camp situation for a while and then at my junior high school "Stairway to Heaven" was used to get the majority black student population to clear the floor at school dances and that always felt sort of gross. Then I got into punk rock and my Led Zeppelin hatred became something of a mandatory aesthetic/ideological argument for most of my late teens/early twenties. End result: it wasn't until, like, ten years ago (maybe), that I was able put on a Zeppelin record, enjoy it and think, objectively, that, sure, okay, they did have a couple of hits.
I'm sure that whole scene is pretty great. I love Frances McDormand. But I still can't listen to "Stairway to Heaven" all the way though. Never, ever again.
posted by thivaia at 6:54 AM on June 9, 2014
For years afterward I thought I hated Led Zeppelin. I blamed the summer camp situation for a while and then at my junior high school "Stairway to Heaven" was used to get the majority black student population to clear the floor at school dances and that always felt sort of gross. Then I got into punk rock and my Led Zeppelin hatred became something of a mandatory aesthetic/ideological argument for most of my late teens/early twenties. End result: it wasn't until, like, ten years ago (maybe), that I was able put on a Zeppelin record, enjoy it and think, objectively, that, sure, okay, they did have a couple of hits.
I'm sure that whole scene is pretty great. I love Frances McDormand. But I still can't listen to "Stairway to Heaven" all the way though. Never, ever again.
posted by thivaia at 6:54 AM on June 9, 2014
The description of the video mentions how the scene was included as an extra on some DVD release of it -- I want to say Untitled, but I am not positive -- but because of the rights situation, the scene appeared without the music. I saw it years ago. It unfolds as you see here, with them sitting in polite silence, Frances McDormand beginning to speak but being cut off by the (inaudible) vocals, the guy in green enthusiastically playing air drums to nothing at all. It really is quite funny.
That's why the clip has the 5,4,3,2,1 Press Play graphic when he starts the record, so you can, too.
posted by GrapeApiary at 8:05 AM on June 9, 2014
That's why the clip has the 5,4,3,2,1 Press Play graphic when he starts the record, so you can, too.
posted by GrapeApiary at 8:05 AM on June 9, 2014
As a scene, it adds nothing to the narrative that we need.
That makes sense if you think movies are perfect pieces of clockwork, where every single thing in it must add to the narrative or be discarded. That's one theory of film, a popular one, and, I think, a tedious one.
Nicely put. The wonderful world of serious film lovers seems to have a paradox at its heart. On one level, there's a great love of innovation and unpredictability. On another, there's this almost religious adherence to the RULES OF THE FORM. I've certainly made enough of a study of it to realize that yes, for very many of the movies I've come to love (or at least respect), "... movies are perfect pieces of clockwork, where every single thing [...] must add to the narrative or be discarded." But there are exceptions. There must be exceptions. If there aren't, then we're not talking about an art form, we're talking about a science, and as much as the hacks in financing and marketing may wish it otherwise, cinema is not a science.
One obvious recent example is something like Tree Of Life. And then there's pretty much everything Stanley Kubrick ever made post Dr Strangelove, not to mention the entire oeuvre of someone like Luis Bunuel ... and probably the Coen Brothers as well.
That said, I suspect that Almost Famous likely couldn't have endured the full run of Stairway To Heaven as presented here ... unless the whole film was presented differently, with much more in the way of such thematic asides. Which is an intriguing proposition to me. Imagine a four or five hour long Almost Famous, not intended for theatrical viewing, but presented more as multi-part HBO style mini-series deeply in love with its subject matter and thus at ease with indulging long strange sidetracks from the overall narrative line.
Why not?
posted by philip-random at 8:37 AM on June 9, 2014
That makes sense if you think movies are perfect pieces of clockwork, where every single thing in it must add to the narrative or be discarded. That's one theory of film, a popular one, and, I think, a tedious one.
Nicely put. The wonderful world of serious film lovers seems to have a paradox at its heart. On one level, there's a great love of innovation and unpredictability. On another, there's this almost religious adherence to the RULES OF THE FORM. I've certainly made enough of a study of it to realize that yes, for very many of the movies I've come to love (or at least respect), "... movies are perfect pieces of clockwork, where every single thing [...] must add to the narrative or be discarded." But there are exceptions. There must be exceptions. If there aren't, then we're not talking about an art form, we're talking about a science, and as much as the hacks in financing and marketing may wish it otherwise, cinema is not a science.
One obvious recent example is something like Tree Of Life. And then there's pretty much everything Stanley Kubrick ever made post Dr Strangelove, not to mention the entire oeuvre of someone like Luis Bunuel ... and probably the Coen Brothers as well.
That said, I suspect that Almost Famous likely couldn't have endured the full run of Stairway To Heaven as presented here ... unless the whole film was presented differently, with much more in the way of such thematic asides. Which is an intriguing proposition to me. Imagine a four or five hour long Almost Famous, not intended for theatrical viewing, but presented more as multi-part HBO style mini-series deeply in love with its subject matter and thus at ease with indulging long strange sidetracks from the overall narrative line.
Why not?
posted by philip-random at 8:37 AM on June 9, 2014
No Quarter
Quite.
Nobody plays precision slop like Jimmy Page. Nobody. That shit gets in.
posted by flabdablet at 8:52 AM on June 9, 2014
Quite.
Nobody plays precision slop like Jimmy Page. Nobody. That shit gets in.
posted by flabdablet at 8:52 AM on June 9, 2014
Hey, lookit these kids playing The Ocean!
posted by Cookiebastard at 10:01 AM on June 9, 2014 [1 favorite]
posted by Cookiebastard at 10:01 AM on June 9, 2014 [1 favorite]
Here's Jimmy Page talking about Kashmir and showing The Edge and Jack White how to play it. It's rather fascinating to see the dynamic with Page as the teacher, and The Edge and Jack White as the students. As skillful as they are, they show a side you don't often get to see, but every guitarist of any skill level knows all too well - that intense focus and squinting at a master guitarist's fingers on the fretboard and a bit of struggling here and there to match it, and that moment when it all clicks in their heads. I've shown this clip to a few people who play guitar when they have mentioned some frustrating thing they are trying to learn, some who have played for years and some who have just started, and tell them "See? They're struggling a bit too" and actually seeing them have to work at it just like everybody else does works wonders for reinvigorating their efforts, as it did for me.
posted by chambers at 8:49 PM on June 9, 2014 [3 favorites]
posted by chambers at 8:49 PM on June 9, 2014 [3 favorites]
As a scene, it adds nothing to the narrative that we need.
I think that you could edit out every scene of hobbits crying from
The Lord of the Rings trilogy and have a fairly decent hour and 40
minute epic from the remains.
Also, "Beat The Devil".
posted by Chitownfats at 8:58 AM on June 10, 2014
I think that you could edit out every scene of hobbits crying from
The Lord of the Rings trilogy and have a fairly decent hour and 40
minute epic from the remains.
Also, "Beat The Devil".
posted by Chitownfats at 8:58 AM on June 10, 2014
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