Comments on: Slow Dance. Rock Out! Slow Dance.

Slow Dance. Rock Out! Slow Dance.

Armitage Shanks — Fri, 05 May 2006 09:02:23 -0800

37 versions of Stairway To Heaven, including Rolf Harris [mp3], Dolly Parton [mp3], and SCTV's Dave Thomas [mp3] doing a K-Tel ad for, uh, 30 versions of Stairway To Heaven. (See also 32 versions of Ghost Riders In The Sky.)

By: boo_radley

boo_radley — Fri, 05 May 2006 09:13:36 -0800

That Dick Dale version of Ghost Riders is goddamn incredible. Awesome.

By: interrobang

interrobang — Fri, 05 May 2006 09:13:58 -0800

The Pat Boone version's pretty good.

By: interrobang

interrobang — Fri, 05 May 2006 09:15:57 -0800

(Of Stairway to Heaven, that is.)

By: rosemere

rosemere — Fri, 05 May 2006 09:17:40 -0800

OMG, you have to get the version by Leningrad Cowboys and the honest-to-God Red Army Chorus. Starts off delicate and faithful, then the mandolin and brass come in, then the chorus: "Makes me vonder, makes me vonder ..."

By: rosemere

rosemere — Fri, 05 May 2006 09:21:15 -0800

(And if you can ever find the Cowboy's version of "Happy Together", it's more deep-voiced Slavic goodness, even though the band themselves are Finnish.)

By: Decani

Decani — Fri, 05 May 2006 09:27:44 -0800

Awesome. I love WFMU. And the Hard-Ons' "version" had me laughing like a loon.

By: Zero Gravitas

Zero Gravitas — Fri, 05 May 2006 09:28:40 -0800

I've had parts of the original Stairways to Heaven compilation for a long time, and I've been looking for exactly this for ages. Thank You Can't help but love the Rolf Harris version. The way I heard it, he had never actually heard the original tune. He was simply handed the sheet music and made a his rather unique version. This may or may not be true, I can't imagine how anyone could escape ever hearing Stairway to Heaven.

By: freebird

freebird — Fri, 05 May 2006 09:32:19 -0800

Yaaaaay! Can't wait to check all these out. BTW, Robert Plant on Fresh Air a while back totally reaffirmed my belief that Rock Stars can still be Good Folks by, when asked about bad covers and wierd versions of "Stairway", launching excitedly into a catalog of bizzaro ones he knew about and how much he loved them. That, and his statement that the 60s got a bit "you know, Harum-Scarum".

By: interrobang

interrobang — Fri, 05 May 2006 09:37:36 -0800

This may or may not be true, I can't imagine how anyone could escape ever hearing Stairway to Heaven. I managed never to hear the whole thing until about a year ago. I'd only heard the very last 30 seconds or so on the radio until then. It's possible.

By: Armitage Shanks

Armitage Shanks — Fri, 05 May 2006 09:42:35 -0800

Hmmm, I should read AskMeFi more often.

By: TwoWordReview

TwoWordReview — Fri, 05 May 2006 10:02:21 -0800

I thought Dolly Parton's version was great until the she reached the "..whispering wind" line when she just started making shit up and singing the line 'stairway to heaven' at least seventeen times.

By: mosessmith

mosessmith — Fri, 05 May 2006 10:07:50 -0800

This is by far the most impressive Stairway to Heaven cover I've ever heard.

By: smackfu

smackfu — Fri, 05 May 2006 10:14:30 -0800

So what is the most famous version Ghost Riders In The Sky?

By: Gamblor

Gamblor — Fri, 05 May 2006 10:33:04 -0800

The surf guitar versions of Ghost Riders In the Sky are awesome. Thanks!

By: kirkaracha

kirkaracha — Fri, 05 May 2006 10:36:42 -0800

This is by far the most impressive Stairway to Heaven cover I've ever heard. "For this video, the artist practiced 3 months in a row to learn to sing Led Zeppelin's most famous song--entirely backwards." Umm, that wasn't backwards. (I watched both clips.)

By: rosemere

rosemere — Fri, 05 May 2006 10:38:57 -0800

He DID sing it backwards, then the film was reversed. Note that the people behind him are walking backwards.

By: bukvich

bukvich — Fri, 05 May 2006 10:43:16 -0800

The best "Ghost Riders" is Mary McCaslin's, of the ten or so I have heard, and she is not on the list. There must be a hundred of them.

By: weston

weston — Fri, 05 May 2006 10:45:55 -0800

My brother came home from a two-year stint in Austrailia with a Rolf Harris disc, and the Stairway to Heaven bit was always one of my favorites. Unrepentantly silly. :)

By: furtive

furtive — Fri, 05 May 2006 10:58:45 -0800

Nice find. I've been putting the Dread Zepplin version on mix tapes for years now.

By: ikalliom

ikalliom — Fri, 05 May 2006 11:28:43 -0800

I love how Ms. Parton sings "wanna be a rock and not a roll" instead of "to be a rock and not to roll".

By: snofoam

snofoam — Fri, 05 May 2006 11:34:51 -0800

"Makes me vonder, makes me vonder ..." This reminds me that if I won the lottery I would spend all the money financing a movie just so I could include a scene where Arnold Schwarzenegger goes into a karaoke bar and does a version of "All Tomorrow's Paaaa-ties" by the VU. In fact, that would be the whole movie.

By: booksandlibretti

booksandlibretti — Fri, 05 May 2006 12:06:23 -0800

I have two more versions of "Stairway to Heaven." The first is a predictable cover by Me First & the Gimme Gimmes. The second is a Gregorian chant version -- yeah, really. Yeah, I know. To demonstrate my coolness even more, allow me to say that I think Tom Chapin also did a cover of "Ghost Riders."

By: Ber

Ber — Fri, 05 May 2006 12:16:34 -0800

Like Freebird, I heard Plant's interview and he does have a sense of fair play about all the covers. Of course he should considering how much cash the rights to the song must bring in every year. On another note, I saw Zep in '77. They ended the show with "Stairway". There's a reason that anthem endured. The earth DID move.

By: wendell

wendell — Fri, 05 May 2006 13:00:02 -0800

Hey, don't forget Neil Sedaka and the O'Jays... but then, theirs were two different songs with the same title, and if you're gonna be casual about it, you should include Sarah Vaughan's corny-but-still-cool recording of "I'll Build a Stairway to Paradice (With a New Step Every Day)", the title of which obviously inspired the first line of Zep's song.

By: dances_with_sneetches

dances_with_sneetches — Fri, 05 May 2006 18:04:52 -0800

Jimmy Page commented on Tiny Tim's version, saying, "Thank God, someone has finally killed that song." (note: it might have been Robert Plant)

By: Ickster

Ickster — Fri, 05 May 2006 18:54:20 -0800

My favorite is the one by the Mothers of Invention; hearing Page's solo played note-for-note by the horn section is funny as hell.

By: arto

arto — Fri, 05 May 2006 20:13:13 -0800

Jimmy Page commented on Tiny Tim's version, saying, "Thank God, someone has finally killed that song." (note: it might have been Robert Plant) I don'w know how anyone could confuse Robert Plant and Tiny Tim...

By: arto

arto — Fri, 05 May 2006 20:13:41 -0800

(or for that matter confuse W and T)

By: AmyMay

AmyMay — Fri, 05 May 2006 21:10:09 -0800

I'm sorry, but some songs just should NOT be messed with. Dolly Parton's version is just WRONG and she totally screwed up the end of the song.

By: mmoncur

mmoncur — Sun, 07 May 2006 20:17:54 -0800

They missed Gian-Piero Reverberi. I have his version from 1977 on vinyl somewhere.

By: Armitage Shanks

Armitage Shanks — Mon, 08 May 2006 07:22:53 -0800

It's now 60 versions.

By: Decani

Decani — Wed, 10 May 2006 16:48:24 -0800

I'd post the version I did with my old band, if we'd ever recorded it. We did it as a reel. We felt it important to bring out the full inherent nonny of the song. By the way, if anyone wants to form an ironic post-folk band called "The Full Inherent Nonny", please email me. Or not.