Led Zeppelin have done something they have never done before. They have actually allowed the use of Stairway to Heaven in a film.
Famously, the group have always refused to license one of their most famous songs in cinema. Cameron Crowe had to cut a sequence from 2000’s Almost Famous which showed the characters attempting to convince William’s mother to allow him to go on the road with the band Stillwater by listening to Stairway to Heaven.
The group’s policy has become so well-known that it was referenced in Wayne’s World. When Wayne walks into a guitar shop and attempts to play the song, he is directed to a sign on the wall that reads in no uncertain terms: ‘NO Stairway To Heaven’.
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However, now, some 55 years after it was first released, Zeppelin are finally loosening their grip on the track. They have allowed Greta Gerwig to use a section in the trailer for the upcoming CS Lewis adaptation Narnia: The Magician’s Nephew. During the three-minute-long snippet, you can hear Jimmy Page’s famous guitar intro, the bridge and Robert Plant’s outro line.
So why this film and why now? Well, it’s known that Robert Plant is a devotee of CS Lewis and Tolkien – his lyrics in both Zep and on his solo albums have referenced both authors’ works. Speaking to Rolling Stone about the trailer, Gerwig suggested that Plant and Page “saw the heart and the story and the drama in it.”
“It’s an epic song,” she said of Stairway. “It’s about the two paths of good and evil … It is a spiritual quest and a spiritual journey. So to me, this was a song that made sense to introduce the film to the world.”
Of course, the track has turned up in cinemas before, in 1976 in Zep’s The Song Remains the Same concert film/documentary. And some of their other more famous songs have been licensed to other films – Immigrant Song in both School of Rock and Thor: Ragnarok and That’s the Way in Almost Famous.
As for Narnia: The Magician’s Nephew, you’ll have to wait a wee while to actually see it in the cinemas – it isn’t released until 12 February next year.
