Led Zeppelin did not steal "Stairway to Heaven," jury rules

I know, nobody cares what I think. But I just want to use this soap box to say that Stairway to Heaven is the most overrated overplayed song of all time. Just thinking about it makes me squirm, (not in a good way).

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There was a very good Australian comedy (kinda; they used comedy to examine serious subjects) show in the 80’s called The Money or the Gun?.

One of the show’s running gags was that they’d have a different band on each week, always doing a cover of Stairway, but in radically differing styles. There were pseudo-B52s, pseudo-Doors, late and early Beatles versions, a banjo version, etc. etc.

And I just found this playlist…

(the first one is a private vid, but the rest of 'em seem fine)

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But you can’t copyright borrowing from Bach. At worst, Led Zeppelin ripped off Spirit referencing Bach.

Sure, I agree. Some people have noted the similarity between “Communication Breakdown” and Eddie Cochran’s “Nervous Breakdown”, and similarities between “How Many More Times” and Howlin Wolf’s “How Many More Years” and “Smokestack Lightnin” both (lyrics from one, riff from another.) But again, those songs were changed more than enough to warrant them being considered Led Zep compositions. I think they later gave Wolf partial credit (probably because they’d already been sued for “The Lemon Song” and “Bring It On Home.”)

[edit: “ten notes in a song that’s more than five minutes long” well. . . the first part of “Amazing Grace” is ten notes, and is pretty distinctive, if someone used it people would immediately notice, so the actual number of notes might not always be the issue. The fade-out refrain to “Hey Jude” is ten notes, though one part repeats, and that song is about five minutes-- you couldn’t get away with stealing that unattributed.]

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