Today, due to globalization, the mass culture affects more people than ever, shaping young people’s beliefs and affecting their perception of the world. You might not notice it, but your daily perception of popular culture slowly but surely changes your personality. Even something as frivolous as memes, that get shared by millions daily, is a product of humanity’s collective unconscious. They are nothing more than symbols, just like the Holy Grail or the Hammer and Sickle. However, the two symbols I just mentioned were the most significant symbols for societies for several decades or centuries. Memes, however, become popular and die out in the same month, if not the same week. This accelerated movement of the objective psyche is driven by nothing more than the globalization of symbols and mass culture.
That’s why archetypes are much more than literary devices. If you understand the inner workings of archetypes and analyze their patterns in pop culture, you can understand the psychological state of a community or humanity in general. When analyzing stories, it’s important not only to just analyze symbols and patterns in stories but also across them. As you start picking apart different stories, you will come up to one inevitable conclusion that all stories are the same. The protagonist is called to an adventure, he makes new friends and enemies, faces an obstacle, makes a big realization, fights the enemy, and returns home changed. This structure is called the Hero’s Journey, coined by Joseph Campbell. In this course, we will often come across this journey in many different forms and cultures. But today, I wanna talk about a Hero’s Journey in a place you might least expect it in, the “Stairway To Heaven”.
Right from the start, we are introduced to our main character, our hero, the lady. When I read these lines, I get a feeling that the lady is either a wealthy woman or a spoiled child. Since she’s “sure all that glitters is gold”, we see that she has no experience in the real world. She has probably lived most of her life in a Disney palace that her parents or her husband have built for her. We also see that she buys her stairway to heaven, while most people have to spend all their lives climbing it. And lastly, even if the stores are all closed, it takes her one word to get what she came for, again referencing her power or authority.
Continuing the religious theme that Robert Plant has established with the first verse, the sign on the wall can be an allusion to Martin Luther, who created Protestantism by nailing his 95 theses on the wall. These theses were mainly against the Catholic church, and their selling of plenary indulgence, which was supposed to reduce a person’s sins in the next life. Despite the theses, the lady still wants to be sure, because she wants to buy her stairway to heaven, rather than struggling for it. The next two lines, about a songbird, have no real meaning, at least that’s what Plant has said. However, they still serve to establish the scenery and the theme of the song, with a brook and a songbird.
Since these two verses are closely related to each other, let’s analyze them together.
Firstly, we see a contrast between the verses. The first verse provides dark imagery, while the second one preaches hope. The west, in the first line, can symbolize death, since the sun sets in the west. This is why his spirit is crying for leaving. It can also represent rebirth, since the sun always rises after setting. It might also be an allusion to Tolkien’s Middle Earth, where the west was home of the Elves and the elite. In the context of the Hero’s Journey, this is the part of the song where the momentum picks up and we reach the second part of the trek, the call to adventure. Plant’s spirit wants to leave the familiar and head to the West. While we do not know for sure, what West symbolizes, we know that it is a destination with a purpose.
The second part of the first verse talks about rings of smoke through the trees. To me, this seems like a metaphor to describe the state of the world. During the song when he sings these lines, his tone is gloomy and perhaps even worrisome. The smoke through the trees might imply a fire, a burning forest, and instead of doing anything about it, people are just gathered around and stand looking.
The call to adventure is usually followed by a meeting with a mentor. Hence, in this verse, we are introduced to a peculiar character, the piper. We will meet the piper once again later in our journey, and we will see that the piper emits some characteristics of a savior. In this verse specifically, if we all call the tune, or perform a certain ritual, the piper will help us. Some of you might consider it as a stretch, but I believe the piper is a character that is deified, a mentor that our lady meets. In the second part of this verse, Plant’s voice rises, and the tone changes from gloomy to hopeful. After the sun sets in the West, the new day will dawn, and instead of fires, the forests will echo with laughter.
Moving forward with the song, we arrive at what Campbell described as the “Threshold“ — “a passage beyond the veil of the known into the unknown.” This is one of the more exciting parts of the story, and in the song, it is accompanied by the introductions of drums, and a rise in Plant’s pitch. The crossing of the threshold is usually followed by new enemies and allies, such as the May Queen. In many European cultures, May Queen is a female goddess that symbolizes fauna and nature in general. By invoking the theme of spring, Plant further draws the themes of rebirth and hope, continuing the optimistic mood established in the last verse. The following two lines, about changing the road you are on, are yet again about hope.
Our mentor, the piper, is back again in this verse, calling the lady to join him. The way I interpret this verse is that the lady’s head is buzzing with thoughts about morality and decisions. She is going through an epiphany, and questioning whether she can really buy her stairway to heaven. The second line is similar to James 4:8 — “Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you”. We established earlier that the piper is a mentor, a God figure, and he is calling the lady to join him in the path of salvation.
This verse gives a way to the splendid and vigorous guitar solo by Jimmy Page. It is dubbed as one of the greatest rock and roll performances of all times because it fits so right with the song. It fuels the imagination and personally, I almost imagine a Tolkienian sword fight when I listen to that part. You probably imagine something else. But one thing is for sure, this is the climax of the song. In the Hero’s Journey, this part is characterized by death and rebirth. This is where our Lady goes through an ordeal to find the right path and reach salvation. And this leads to our next part of the song.
Here Plant mentions a very deep archetype that we will come across a lot throughout this course, the Shadow. Jung describes the shadow as the person’s dark side. This is yet another juxtaposition of good and bad in this song, just like the two paths you go by in the fifth verse. As we continue, we see the lady we all know, our hero. Unlike the beginning of the story, where she was spoiled and condescending, we see that now she shines white light and wants to give hope to everyone. The trials and tribulations she went through have changed her. This is the penultimate part of the Hero’s Journey, the ”Ultimate Reward”. And the final part of the journey is:
The return home. We end where we started. But this time, our hero is a changed person with a reward, the enlightenment she gained.
Analyzing this song itself is kind of a journey. It contains so many allusions and symbols, that I wouldn’t just be able to fit the whole analysis into one lesson. It really makes me wonder what was going through Plant’s mind when he was jotting these words down.
Work Cited
- “How the Collective Unconscious Is Tied to Dreams, Beliefs, and Phobias.” Verywell Mind, 15 May 2020, www.verywellmind.com/what-is-the-collective-unconscious-2671571.
- Campbell, Joseph. The Hero with a Thousand Faces (The Collected Works of Joseph Campbell). Third, New World Library, 1949.
- Jones, Josh. “How Led Zeppelin’s ‘Stairway to Heaven’ Recreates the Epic Hero’s Journey Described by Joseph Campbell.” Open Culture, 31 May 2019, www.openculture.com/2019/05/how-led-zeppelins-stairway-to-heaven-recreates-the-epic-heros-journey.html.
- Polyphonic. “Stairway to Heaven: Led Zeppelin’s Hero’s Journey.” YouTube, uploaded by Stairway to Heaven: Led Zeppelin’s Hero’s Journey, 23 May 2019, www.youtube.com/watch?v=XYMvtctbvXk.
- “Led Zeppelin — Stairway to Heaven.” Genius, 8 Nov. 1971, genius.com/Led-zeppelin-stairway-to-heaven-lyrics.
