In 2016, rare tapes of Led Zeppelin writing “Stairway To Heaven” at Headley Grange in 1970 were played in a Los Angeles courtroom in the presence of Jimmy Page. The recordings remain officially unreleased to this day.

In court, Page explained what the small number of attendees heard on the tapes, giving a unique run-through of the writing process of one of the most famous songs in history.

LedZepNews purchased and analysed thousands of pages of documents from the trial over the origins of “Stairway To Heaven”, including transcripts of Page’s testimony and the evidence lists. Here’s the first ever deep dive into the Headley Grange tapes using Page’s in-court testimony.

The origins of ‘Stairway To Heaven’

During the trial, Page said he began composing “Stairway To Heaven” at home between May and August 1970. “I actually moved houses during that period, as well, so in between touring and whatever. I would say it’s between the location of Pangbourne in Berkshire or my home in Sussex, which was Plumpton,” Page said in court on June 21, 2016, according to court transcripts.

“I was working on various ideas all the time, to be honest with you, if I wasn’t on the road,” Page told the court. “It gave me the balance between the sort of loud music on tour and I’d sort of turn the coin and play acoustic guitar when I wasn’t on the road, and I would be preparing for the next album that was coming.”

“I seem to remember that I had the fanfare first and the idea of that going into a solo, which was pretty radical and no one had done something like that before,” Page added.

By the time Page arrived at Headley Grange later that year, he had the rough sketch of the instrumental song ready to show John Paul Jones. “I had the ideas for a map, if you like, putting this together, all the sections, and … I wanted it to sort of reach a sort of climax at the end of it,” he said.

“Obviously, at this point of time, there was no lyrics involved, so it was really just the sequence and the mapping of the music and the sections,” Page said. “It was an ambitious piece and … I must say that with Led Zeppelin, if you came up with ideas or somebody had a riff or something, if it wasn’t very good, it would be jettisoned and you move on very quickly to something else.”

“So because this was a very ambitious idea, I wanted to make sure that rather than me just try and plow through on my own with nobody knowing it, I thought the best thing to do was to get together with John Paul Jones and so at least there would be two members that would know it from beginning to end. So I started to routine him,” he continued.

“I had a very ambitious map that I was trying to establish and something which was going to sort of break certain musical rules, this whole idea of acceleration. It’s more in classical music you’ll find this, but not necessarily in pop or what one loosely termed rock. So I basically wanted to make sure that I could run through the various ideas that I had,” Page said. “I only had an idea of how to glue them together, but, as I say, I wanted to have an ally who would know it so by the time we got together with John Bonham and, indeed, Robert, it would be starting to shape up into a piece.”

What was entered into evidence in the trial

To examine the origins of the song, specifically the crucial early section of it that was the subject of the copyright lawsuit, the lawyers for the plaintiff entered eight tapes of the writing of “Stairway To Heaven” into evidence, numbered D107-D114.

Led Zeppelin’s lawyers also entered into evidence an exhibit titled “Bootleg albums and Headley Grange recordings on album” that had the evidence numbers D000104-06. We can presume from the title of this exhibit that this was at least one bootleg album, not unreleased original recording tapes from Page’s archive.

When it came to the trial, the eight Headley Grange writing tapes were referred to as 2011-1 to 2011-8.

Tape 2011-1

The first tape played in the courtroom was Tape 2011-1, seemingly the earliest recording of the song’s writing process.

“You’re going to hear me introducing it, basically routining it so that John Paul Jones gets to memorise it,” Page said. “And the bits that you will hear, it’s the same story. I’m laying out the overall plan for it.”

“John Paul Jones is on the electric piano because I wanted the electric piano to come in at some point on this song, because, as I say, it was very ambitious and also very long, that it wouldn’t have been for him just to play the bass along with this,” he added. “It wouldn’t have been as effective as if he’d have played the electric piano with the voicings of the guitar.”

“So what we’re going to hear is this is the very first sort of introduction, if you like, for me to John Paul Jones where we’re running through, and I think right now is the time to record it as a point of reference. It’s like a sketchbook, you know? And on this, as well, there is a section that I try out that gets jettisoned after this tape,” Page continued.

“This recording is pretty soon after I’ve originally played it to him. I maybe only run through it once or twice beforehand and then it’s time to make a note of it,” Page explained.

Page’s description of the tape allows us to identify possible matches for it from publicly available recordings of the writing process that have emerged on bootleg albums.

Six different versions of “Stairway To Heaven” have emerged: Four instrumental run-throughs with just Page and Jones, one tape where Robert Plant joins them and contributes early vocals and a tape with Page, Jones, Plant and Bonham who comes in on drums midway through.

You can read our full rundown of these tapes at the bottom of this article.

Tape 2011-1, the earliest recording of the writing of the song, seems to match with Take 1 from the bootleg tapes. It seems to be the earliest writing demo as Jones sounds hesitant on the electric piano and Take 1 has an uptempo guitar section not found in the final track. That fits with the “section that I try out that gets jettisoned” that Page described in court.

Tape 2011-3

The second tape played in the courtroom was Tape 2011-3. “So there’s like a sort of link between the verses, and then there’s some arpeggio chords, which are played quite rhythmically, and that’s sort of establishing an area whereby that would be vocals to come in,” Page explained when asked to describe the tape.

“And then it gets through to the point of the fanfare, and John doesn’t really know what it is, so I’ve stopped it so I can show him what the fanfare is.”

This seems to be bootleg Take 2, which ends with the fanfare section and Page stopping it to allow Jones to understand what he’s playing.

Tape 2011-5

After this, the courtroom was played Tape 2011-5. “So we’ve gone from the fanfare section and then it goes into what would be the guitar solo chords,” Page explained. “And in actual fact, the vocal will pick up the last verse over those chords, as well. That’s what happens there. So that went on for ages, those chords, and I thought it was best to not try your patience.”

This tape could be bootleg Take 3 and Take 4. Both have Page playing chords on the acoustic guitar accompanied by Jones on electric piano.

Tape 2011-7

The final tape played in court was Tape 2011-7, which featured Plant on vocals but no drums. “We’ve had a run-through now with what John Paul Jones and I had worked out the night before, I think it’s probably the following day, running through the overall structure with Robert,” Page described.

“And Robert, you can hear that he’s got some of the lyrics already coming through that, again, would end up on the final one. But at this point, we still haven’t run it through with John Bonham on drums, and he’s going to come in almost about halfway through the song and that’s going to be after this.”

“Well, this is a really early stage,” Page said. “Again, this is a really early growth of the song and the piecing together of it. It’s going through up to the point of the solo, where the chords were just repeating over and over. We’re at no point at the moment where Robert’s going to come up with the last verse, for example, but once we start kicking this over with the drums as well, then it’s getting more growth to it and more volume even and more texture.”

“And then Robert sort of finishes the vocals. As far as I remember, he had a good 85% of it all done in a very, very short time.”

This seems to be a good match for what is referred to on bootleg albums as Take 5. We’re looking for a tape with Page, Jones and Plant singing early vocals but no Bonham on drums as Page mentions he hasn’t yet joined in.

This means that Take 6, the bootleg track with all the band members, likely matches with Tape 2011-8 which wasn’t played in court.

The 6 takes available publicly

Take 1 instrumental (3:46)
This is a low quality tape where you can hear Page on an acoustic guitar running through the introduction of the song, with Jones joining him on electric piano playing chords in the background.

Page repeatedly runs through the song’s introductory riff and Jones experiments with adding different chords. Midway through the tape, Page moves into an uptempo segment of the song that didn’t end up used in the final version. He then returns to the introductory riff and then back into the uptempo guitar strumming before the tape cuts out.

Take 2 instrumental (2:23)
The second take begins with the sound of a man laughing before we hear Page on guitar playing the guitar chords present in the first half of the final song behind Plant’s vocals. Jones is joining him again on electric piano.

Page then moves to the guitar riff heard during the “Dear lady, can you hear the wind blow” section of the finished song and talking can be heard in the background. They play up to the fanfare segment that comes immediately before the guitar solo in the finished song.

At the end of the tape, Jones can be heard saying “I should have gone down.” Page says “It comes in from…” Another voice can be heard in the background.

Take 3 instrumental (1:30)
This tape seems to follow straight on from Take 2. “It depends how you start,” Page can be heard saying, before twice singing “da da da” to mimic the guitar fanfare that precedes the guitar solo in the finished song.

Page and Jones play this section of the song together on acoustic guitar and electric piano. A rhythmic knocking sound, perhaps a foot stomping, can be heard before they finish playing and someone says “Yeah” at the end before the tape cuts out.

Take 4 instrumental (2:54)
This tape begins with muffled voices. Page can be heard playing acoustic guitar with Jones joining him on electric piano. They play the first half of the song up to where the guitar solo is in the finished song. A rhythmic knocking noise is heard again.

Take 5 with vocals (6:03)
The song is recognisably more finished now. Page and Jones are still playing the acoustic guitar and electric piano. Plant joins Page and Jones, providing some early vocals with an echo effect at start. He’s got the song’s first line sorted, but then sings: “When she gets there she knows if the stores are all closed she can call in and see a movie.”

Instead of the finished “it makes me wonder” line, Plant instead sings “But I love you.” After this, he repeats the first lines of the song again. Plant then vocalises over the guitar solo chords and the tape cuts out.

Take 6 with vocals (8:10)
This starts with a man saying “take one” before we hear Plant say “right”. Page plays the introduction on acoustic guitar with Jones still on electric piano. A squeaking noise can be heard in the background.

Plant sings early vocals but has more lines written than the previous tape. He repeats the original “When she gets there she knows if the stores are all closed she can call in and see a movie” line heard in the previous tape.

This time, though, Plant has the song’s second verse written and doesn’t repeat the first verse like the previous tape.

Bonham comes in on drums halfway through and Page switches to electric guitar for an early version of the song’s solo. A second guitar can be heard during the solo, possibly Plant playing rhythm guitar. Plant sings “and she’s buying a stairway to heaven” as the song ends, like the finished song. After the song is finished, Bonham can be heard saying “right, let’s have a listen to that. Did you mark the bloody thing? Bloody hell.”

What else exists

Two other tapes that predate the final album version of “Stairway To Heaven” exist.

The outtake version (8:23)
In 2007, Japanese bootleg label Empress Valley released The Lost Sessions Volume 9 which contained a different studio take of “Stairway To Heaven” to the finished song. This originates from sessions at Island Studios in London after the writing at Headley Grange.

The tape has a different introduction with an alternative recorder sound. Plant is clearly singing a different vocal take and Page plays a different version of the song’s guitar solo.

Sunset Sound Mix (8:03)
In 2014, Led Zeppelin released a deluxe version of the band’s fourth album that contained a different mix of “Stairway To Heaven” that originated from a mixing session at Sunset Sound studios in Los Angeles in 1971. Page was unhappy with these mixes and took the album’s master tapes back to the UK where he produced the final mixes found on the album.

Follow Led Zeppelin News on Twitter and Facebook to stay up to date on news as it happens. You can also sign up to our email for a digest of the latest news sent to your inbox. LedZepNews uses paid Amazon referral links to earn commissions to cover its costs.