For the most part and with very few exceptions, I love the music of Led Zeppelin.  Their first six albums, from Led Zeppelin (or Led Zeppelin 1) through Physical Graffiti are, IMHO, stone cold classics and the three final albums that followed, Presence, In Through the Out Door, and the “bits and pieces” present in Coda are pretty damn good as well even if they aren’t, IMHO, quite as great as the songs in that first batch of albums.

Having said that, Led Zeppelin, unlike many other bands, has had its share of controversy regarding their music.  More specifically, the group has been sued numerous times for allegedly “stealing” others’ music while making their own.  In fact, if you do a simple search through youtube for Led Zeppelin musical “thefts” or “plagiarism” you’ll find stuff like this…

and this, which features several Led Zeppelin songs which, according to the video’s description, became the subject of court action with the judgment resulting in favor of those suing Led Zeppelin…

One of the last examples of Led Zeppelin plagiarism as presented in the above video concerns Stairway to Heaven, arguably Led Zeppelin’s most famous song, and its similarities to the band Spirit’s 1968 song Taurus.  The below video focuses on those similarities…

Frankly, its hard to not hear the similarities between the compositions.  Apparently, a judge hearing the case against Led Zeppelin brought forth by Michael Skidmore, a trustee for the late Randy Wolfe, aka Randy California, who was Spirit’s guitarist and the composer of Taurus, found enough similarities between the two songs to allow a copyright trial to go forward…

Led Zeppelin Stars Face Stairway to Heaven Copyright Trial

I have to admit, things like this depress me.

I believe Led Zeppelin was/is a great band.  Further, I can see how some might defend the band by arguing there are only so many notes and cord progressions and that some songs can and will sound like others but that doesn’t mean there was an active attempt to steal anything, etc. etc. and etc.

But, come on, the examples above are more than just a case of “coincidental” creativity.  In some cases, the band clearly took lyrics and the general sound of songs and made it their own.

Mind you, they did this brilliantly in many cases and subsequently created classic music…

…BUT, they did this by using something someone else created beforehand.

A great analysis of the legal issues behind this possible song theft can be found in this article by Oliver Herzfeld and presented on Forbes.com:

Spirit v. Led Zeppelin: Analysis of the Stairway to Heaven Infringement Suit

Setting aside many of the legal issues, one question that needs to be answered in a case involving theft of creative material is: Can it be determined the accused (in this case the band members of Led Zeppelin) had access or knew about the Spirit song before writing Stairway to Heaven?

In this case, the evidence is more than clear.  From the article:

…there is ample evidence of access (to the Spirit song) since it is well-documented that the two groups performed together the day after Christmas 1968 and four additional times in 1969, all at concerts and festivals where Spirit played “Taurus.”

Ouch.

Anyway, I can’t help but feel Led Zeppelin is going to lose this one.  Again, I love the band and I love their music and, yes, I absolutely love Stairway to Heaven and consider it a great song…

But the reality is to my ears elements of that song were directly lifted -or if you want to be mean about it, stolen– from Spirit’s Taurus and, that being the case, credit -and whatever monetary settlement- should be made to the original artist.

In some ways this diminishes my feelings about Led Zeppelin.  Someone commented, based on these examples of song theft, if it is appropriate to consider Led Zeppelin a great “cover” band.

It’s a shame, really.  I’ll still love Led Zeppelin’s work, but clearly their creativity at times involved lifting the works of others.