I still remember where I was the first time I heard "Stairway to Heaven". It literally stopped me in my tracks, one of a select handful of songs to do so. Eventually I returned to Earth enough to find something to sit on while the song finished. Afterward, the DJ's babble and whatever music followed seemed profane. I turned the stereo off and tried to recreate what I'd heard. I couldn't hear the song enough.
I'd been a Zep fan since the first time I heard "Immigrant Song". I almost wrecked my bicycle when that came through my transistor radio. Yeah, music had a profound effect on me. It still does. And Zep did that to me several times.
I know a lot of people don't like Stairway because "it's been played to death on the radio!" I have a better solution; I quit listening to most music radio. Oh, I wander the "dial" now and then, but 99% of music on the radio is the dregs of a tiny subset of whatever the bean counters have decided America wants. Barf.
So I still love some of my old favorites, "Stairway to Heaven" included. There are times (like tonight) when it hits me like it did the first time, stopping me in my tracks, a transcendent, spiritual experience, effortlessly transporting me to an amazing place.
I've said it before and I'll say it again, if there's a band you really want to go see in their prime, go see them. Find a way. I don't run into many people who say, "Man, I wish I had never gone to see Zook Spliffer Ganesh when 'Reefling the Sterm Acht' was my favorite new album!" But I know a lot of Reefling fans who still rue the decision not to go.
