POLL: Bohemian Rhapsody vs. Stairway to Heaven?

[Stadler]

Growing up, the local AM radio station would always do a year-end countdown.    The top three were ALWAYS some combination of Freebird, Stairway To Heaven and Hotel California.  I don't remember Bohemian Rhapsody ever being that high.  It only really came into my consciousness with Wayne's World, whereas EVERY SINGLE school dance from 6th grade up through high school ended with Stairway To Heaven.

(Funny story; I was bringing my daughter to a dance at her school - I'm guessing it was 9th grade, so this was about five years ago or so - and being me, I played Stairway on the way and made the joke "So, I'm playing this so when some boy asks you to dance, you know what's coming.  It's not ALL slow, there are drums and a fast part!".    She laughed and said there's no way they're playing Dad music at her dance.  Sure as shit I picked her up after and asked how it was, and she was all sullen.  I asked what's wrong and she said "they played that song.  The last one.")

[CrimsonSunrise]

Growing up, the local AM radio station would always do a year-end countdown.    The top three were ALWAYS some combination of Freebird, Stairway To Heaven and Hotel California.  I don't remember Bohemian Rhapsody ever being that high.  It only really came into my consciousness with Wayne's World, whereas EVERY SINGLE school dance from 6th grade up through high school ended with Stairway To Heaven.

(Funny story; I was bringing my daughter to a dance at her school - I'm guessing it was 9th grade, so this was about five years ago or so - and being me, I played Stairway on the way and made the joke "So, I'm playing this so when some boy asks you to dance, you know what's coming.  It's not ALL slow, there are drums and a fast part!".    She laughed and said there's no way they're playing Dad music at her dance.  Sure as shit I picked her up after and asked how it was, and she was all sullen.  I asked what's wrong and she said "they played that song.  The last one.")

[ZirconBlue]

I was already sick of Stairway 25 years ago, while I've only grown tired of Bohemian Rhapsody much more recently.  So BR, for me.

[pg1067]

Growing up, the local AM radio station would always do a year-end countdown.    The top three were ALWAYS some combination of Freebird, Stairway To Heaven and Hotel California.  I don't remember Bohemian Rhapsody ever being that high.  It only really came into my consciousness with Wayne's World, whereas EVERY SINGLE school dance from 6th grade up through high school ended with Stairway To Heaven.

Two thoughts on this.  First, while I never attended a school dance in my life (I don't remember any dances pre-high school), I have a hard time imagining Stairway as a good song for one.  Are you supposed to change from a slow dance to something else when the drums kick in ("If there's a bustle...")?  And what the fuck are you supposed to do when the heavy section starts (after "whispering wind") with several odd-time bars before the guitar solo?

Second, I have the same radio countdown experience as CrimsonSunrise:  95.5 KLOS -- Bob Coburn, Joe Benson, Rita Wilde, Jim Ladd and Cynthia Fox for a while after KMET changed format.  Good times!  Anyway...I think Hey Jude was also routinely up in the top 5.  But has any song and band ever benefited more from being in a movie than Bohemian Rhapsody and Queen did from Wayne's World?  I can't think of one.  But for that movie, I think BR might have faded from general pubic consciousness a long time ago.

[Podaar]

Two great songs that I still love to this day. Gonna have to give the nod to Stairway, though.

[Stadler]

Rita Wilde, Jim Ladd and Cynthia Fox

Any guesses that their real last names are "Stanislawski", "Lichenstein", and "Bingenheimer"?   Those are classic radio names (even down to the "e" in "Wilde"). 

[Stadler]

Growing up, the local AM radio station would always do a year-end countdown.    The top three were ALWAYS some combination of Freebird, Stairway To Heaven and Hotel California.  I don't remember Bohemian Rhapsody ever being that high.  It only really came into my consciousness with Wayne's World, whereas EVERY SINGLE school dance from 6th grade up through high school ended with Stairway To Heaven.

Two thoughts on this.  First, while I never attended a school dance in my life (I don't remember any dances pre-high school), I have a hard time imagining Stairway as a good song for one.  Are you supposed to change from a slow dance to something else when the drums kick in ("If there's a bustle...")?  And what the fuck are you supposed to do when the heavy section starts (after "whispering wind") with several odd-time bars before the guitar solo?

You nailed it.    Now, keeping in mind I was about as smooth as 100 grit sandpaper at that age, you would have to move to a sort of "hands lightly on her hips, with a couple inches in between and a hip sway" move.   It was not fun if you were an awkward teen (i.e. me). 

[The Walrus]

I'm 99.9% certain there are no odd meters in Stairway, the part before the solo is just strummed on the upbeat

sorry, carry on

[pg1067]

Rita Wilde, Jim Ladd and Cynthia Fox

Any guesses that their real last names are "Stanislawski", "Lichenstein", and "Bingenheimer"?   Those are classic radio names (even down to the "e" in "Wilde").

No idea, but there was a DJ on a different LA area station called KROQ whose name was Rodney Bingenheimer.

I'm 99.9% certain there are no odd meters in Stairway, the part before the solo is just strummed on the upbeat

sorry, carry on

The transcription I have from Guitar for the Practicing Musician has "odd meters," which I'd confirm if I were at home right now, but take a look at this video starting at 5:38:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S-rsah2TlkQ

You could write it all in 4/4 up until that 7/8 bar, but doing that doesn't feel right with what he's playing (at least not to me).

[CrimsonSunrise]

Rita Wilde, Jim Ladd and Cynthia Fox

Any guesses that their real last names are "Stanislawski", "Lichenstein", and "Bingenheimer"?   Those are classic radio names (even down to the "e" in "Wilde").

No idea, but there was a DJ on a different LA area station called KROQ whose name was Rodney Bingenheimer.

I'm 99.9% certain there are no odd meters in Stairway, the part before the solo is just strummed on the upbeat

sorry, carry on

The transcription I have from Guitar for the Practicing Musician has "odd meters," which I'd confirm if I were at home right now, but take a look at this video starting at 5:38:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S-rsah2TlkQ

You could write it all in 4/4 up until that 7/8 bar, but doing that doesn't feel right with what he's playing (at least not to me).

KROQ - "Rodney on the Roq!

[cramx3]

Party on Wayne! Party on Garth!

[Stadler]

No idea, but there was a DJ on a different LA area station called KROQ whose name was Rodney Bingenheimer.

You're absolutely right!  I've heard of him, too, though that's not where I got the name from.

[emtee]

StH. The anthem of my generation.

[The Walrus]

I'm 99.9% certain there are no odd meters in Stairway, the part before the solo is just strummed on the upbeat

sorry, carry on

The transcription I have from Guitar for the Practicing Musician has "odd meters," which I'd confirm if I were at home right now, but take a look at this video starting at 5:38:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S-rsah2TlkQ

You could write it all in 4/4 up until that 7/8 bar, but doing that doesn't feel right with what he's playing (at least not to me).

Huh. That is utterly bizarre and the way he's split it up makes no sense to me. 4/4 gets the job done perfectly fine. How weird to make it that much more complex

[SleeperAwake]

This is tough. Love them both, but ultimately went with Stairway. Having "grown up with" Queen and not getting into Zeppelin until later, Stairway still has a mystical, magical quality to me. I've heard Bohemian Rhapsody more times than I can count.

But yeah, both great songs. Worthy adversaries.

[Sacul]

I've never cared for Stairway to Heaven, so easy choice here.

[The Walrus]

The transcription I have from Guitar for the Practicing Musician has "odd meters," which I'd confirm if I were at home right now, but take a look at this video starting at 5:38:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S-rsah2TlkQ

You could write it all in 4/4 up until that 7/8 bar, but doing that doesn't feel right with what he's playing (at least not to me).

I want to circle back to this because this honest to god bugs the shit out of me and I need to lead you to a better way. 

There are no odd meters in Stairway and to write it out that way is to make it far more complicated than it needs to be. The entire song is played in 4, and that strumming section is accenting not the downbeat but the upbeat which is why it has that funny feel. Here it is:



Easy peasy, 8 bars of 4 with concise rhythmic notation, much easier than trying to write in odd meters. There's just a lot of syncopation in the riff. Plus, it more cleanly fits the chord changes.

[pg1067]

There are no odd meters in Stairway and to write it out that way is to make it far more complicated than it needs to be.

I couldn't disagree more (and that's not just because the photo you posted is a transcription of the song for piano - guitar sheet music is only written in treble clef).  For starters, to put those first two notes on the 1 of a measure turns the prior measure into one of 7/8 (the photo you posted isn't at all accurate to the song for the prior measure).  Trying to cram something that's not in 4/4 into 4/4 just because it's possible to make the math line up is monumentally confusing.  At songsterr.com (a tablature site), there's a version of Metropolis Part 1 that has the 5's and 7's section written in 12/8.  You CAN do it, and the math words, but it's just plain wrong.  Why is it wrong?  Because the feel is off.  Same with Stairway.  You can't convince me that the section in question is in 4/4 because 4/4 feels wrong.

By the way, let's be clear that, when Jimmy Page wrote the song, he almost certainly wasn't thinking at all about time signatures, and I'm quite confident that, when he played the song for Bonham, Bonzo didn't say, "so...is that just straight 4/4 or what?"

[The Walrus]

There are no odd meters in Stairway and to write it out that way is to make it far more complicated than it needs to be.

I couldn't disagree more (and that's not just because the photo you posted is a transcription of the song for piano - guitar sheet music is only written in treble clef).  For starters, to put those first two notes on the 1 of a measure turns the prior measure into one of 7/8 (the photo you posted isn't at all accurate to the song for the prior measure).  Trying to cram something that's not in 4/4 into 4/4 just because it's possible to make the math line up is monumentally confusing.  At songsterr.com (a tablature site), there's a version of Metropolis Part 1 that has the 5's and 7's section written in 12/8.  You CAN do it, and the math words, but it's just plain wrong.  Why is it wrong?  Because the feel is off.  Same with Stairway.  You can't convince me that the section in question is in 4/4 because 4/4 feels wrong.

By the way, let's be clear that, when Jimmy Page wrote the song, he almost certainly wasn't thinking at all about time signatures, and I'm quite confident that, when he played the song for Bonham, Bonzo didn't say, "so...is that just straight 4/4 or what?"

First of all it doesn't matter if it's transcribed for piano, guitar, or a trombone. We're talking about rhythm, not harmony, so the clef has no relevance. Second of all, I don't understand this bold part. 5:32 in Stairway, Page hits a chord that is held for 4 beats - a whole bar. At the bottom of the previous page in the book my picture comes from, it is a whole bar of one D major chord. Then the strumming comes in on the downbeat, exactly as it is in the transcription I posted. You say it's "trying to cram something that's not in 4/4 into 4/4" except... it is. While time signature transcriptions can be subjective, this is very clearly not a case of odd meter, and a case of syncopation instead. It might 'feel' wrong to you but I'm telling you, dude, it's in 4/4, whether Page was thinking of time signatures or not. Go play the song. He hits the bar, holds it for 4 beats, then comes in on the downbeat, and the entire section is in normal time. There is no 7/8 going on. In the transcription you shared, the guy hits the chord but only has it ringing for 3 beats and then goes into a flurry of time signature changes to end up back in 4/4 anyway exactly like the picture I shared. You're arguing for an unnecessarily complicated version of the writing, which is fine, but don't tell me 4/4 is *wrong* when it very clearly is not. Honestly I'm a little surprised you're so defensive on this one. You could write out a lot of 4/4 shit in various ways if you wanted to, that doesn't make it correct or easier to read, it literally makes it more complex than it needs to be whether it's easier to your eyes or not. You're just arguing for a method that clearly accents the syncopated riff on a written downbeat instead of the upbeat like it is.

Also, Metropolis is intentionally written to be loaded with odd time signatures, and there's SO much more subjectivity in rhythmically analyzing that piece, although I would argue if you just listen to the drums you could clearly tell which bars are which meter. Stairway is a very cut and dry song in common time. This ain't hard, but you've told me I'm wrong, and inaccurate, when in fact I'm not wrong, and 100% accurate to the song, right down to the timing of the chord you mistakenly identified as "not accurate to the song." What? No, seriously... how does 4/4 feel wrong? It's called syncopation.

EDIT: I'm sorry, dude, this bugs the hell out of me. You say I can't convince you but please, see the light. 

[ProfessorPeart]

Well, in Wayne's World, Wayne was denied from playing Stairway in the music store.

We did get the awesome Bohemian sing-a-long in the car scene.

I went with Queen.

[MoraWintersoul]

BR was always big in Europe. Maybe America needed Wayne's World to make Queen big again. I don't think I've ever seen that movie broadcasting on any of my TV stations though. I just know that scene from gifs on the internet

[The Letter M]

There are no odd meters in Stairway and to write it out that way is to make it far more complicated than it needs to be.

I couldn't disagree more (and that's not just because the photo you posted is a transcription of the song for piano - guitar sheet music is only written in treble clef).  For starters, to put those first two notes on the 1 of a measure turns the prior measure into one of 7/8 (the photo you posted isn't at all accurate to the song for the prior measure).  Trying to cram something that's not in 4/4 into 4/4 just because it's possible to make the math line up is monumentally confusing.  At songsterr.com (a tablature site), there's a version of Metropolis Part 1 that has the 5's and 7's section written in 12/8.  You CAN do it, and the math words, but it's just plain wrong.  Why is it wrong?  Because the feel is off.  Same with Stairway.  You can't convince me that the section in question is in 4/4 because 4/4 feels wrong.

By the way, let's be clear that, when Jimmy Page wrote the song, he almost certainly wasn't thinking at all about time signatures, and I'm quite confident that, when he played the song for Bonham, Bonzo didn't say, "so...is that just straight 4/4 or what?"

First of all it doesn't matter if it's transcribed for piano, guitar, or a trombone. We're talking about rhythm, not harmony, so the clef has no relevance. Second of all, I don't understand this bold part. 5:32 in Stairway, Page hits a chord that is held for 4 beats - a whole bar. At the bottom of the previous page in the book my picture comes from, it is a whole bar of one D major chord. Then the strumming comes in on the downbeat, exactly as it is in the transcription I posted. You say it's "trying to cram something that's not in 4/4 into 4/4" except... it is. While time signature transcriptions can be subjective, this is very clearly not a case of odd meter, and a case of syncopation instead. It might 'feel' wrong to you but I'm telling you, dude, it's in 4/4, whether Page was thinking of time signatures or not. Go play the song. He hits the bar, holds it for 4 beats, then comes in on the downbeat, and the entire section is in normal time. There is no 7/8 going on. In the transcription you shared, the guy hits the chord but only has it ringing for 3 beats and then goes into a flurry of time signature changes to end up back in 4/4 anyway exactly like the picture I shared. You're arguing for an unnecessarily complicated version of the writing, which is fine, but don't tell me 4/4 is *wrong* when it very clearly is not. Honestly I'm a little surprised you're so defensive on this one. You could write out a lot of 4/4 shit in various ways if you wanted to, that doesn't make it correct or easier to read, it literally makes it more complex than it needs to be whether it's easier to your eyes or not. You're just arguing for a method that clearly accents the syncopated riff on a written downbeat instead of the upbeat like it is.

Also, Metropolis is intentionally written to be loaded with odd time signatures, and there's SO much more subjectivity in rhythmically analyzing that piece, although I would argue if you just listen to the drums you could clearly tell which bars are which meter. Stairway is a very cut and dry song in common time. This ain't hard, but you've told me I'm wrong, and inaccurate, when in fact I'm not wrong, and 100% accurate to the song, right down to the timing of the chord you mistakenly identified as "not accurate to the song." What? No, seriously... how does 4/4 feel wrong? It's called syncopation.

EDIT: I'm sorry, dude, this bugs the hell out of me. You say I can't convince you but please, see the light. 

Gotta agree here. When the crash cymbal comes in at 5:51, that's on the & of beat 4, if you count out the 8th notes after it, you'll notice Bonham hits the snare on 2 of the following measure. As a drummer, this is how I've always counted and felt this section. It's all in four. Definitely more in straight 4 than, say, Radiohead's "Pyramid Song" (which is also in 4, albeit swung, but still in 4).

-Marc.

[Stadler]

What's the better song to make out to (there's only one correct answer here, this is not subjective.  )?

[The Walrus]

What's the better song to make out to (there's only one correct answer here, this is not subjective.  )?

When the Levee Breaks, duh. 

[pg1067]

don't tell me 4/4 is *wrong* when it very clearly is not. . . .

. . . you've told me I'm wrong, and inaccurate, when in fact I'm not wrong, and 100% accurate to the song, right down to the timing of the chord you mistakenly identified as "not accurate to the song."

Take a deep breath and try reading a little more carefully.

I never "told [you that you're] wrong" (although you've now told me that I'm "mistaken").  I told you that the interpretation you're advocating for feels wrong (to me, obviously).  There's a difference.

I could walk you through it much as you did with me, but I'm not going to convince you any more than you're going to convince me.  After we have our handwriting contest, we can sit down and listen to this song a few dozen times, including with a metronome.

What's the better song to make out to (there's only one correct answer here, this is not subjective.  )?

When the Levee Breaks, duh. 

The Lemon Song!

[The Walrus]

Dude, you can sit and listen with a metronome yourself. I am not wrong. And you did say I'm wrong, hence my long response. From your post: "You CAN do it, and the math words, but it's just plain wrong.  Why is it wrong?  Because the feel is off.  Same with Stairway.  You can't convince me that the section in question is in 4/4 because 4/4 feels wrong."

So... keep your head in the sand if you want, I guess. I know what I'm talking about. I don't claim to know everything but this is basic level stuff.

[Pettor]

I play Stairway in 2/4 🤷‍♂️

Anyway these are two actually rock legends that I can understand the fuzz about. So many top 100 rock song lists where I mostly gasp through the standard songs included but always feel these two are so special.

Stairway gets me in it's magic atmosphere and structure. The instrumentation up to the legendary climax just couldn't be better.

Bohemian is one of those legendary creative pieces which goes so far beyond the standard template but still end up as an easy and highly enjoyable listen. It just shouldn't work.

I will go with Bohemian because the impact it had on me is greater than Stairway. It thought me that you can do anything with music and by doing that you can achieve something spectacular.

[Lowdz]

Bo Rap because it doesn’t have Plant on it.

[Elite]

Stairway to Heaven is completely in 4/4.

There.

[The Letter M]

Stairway to Heaven is completely in 4/4.

There.

  Agreed.

-Marc.

[Cool Chris]

What's the better song to make out to (there's only one correct answer here, this is not subjective.  )?

[nobloodyname]

*Everyone* knows Stairway is in 4/4

I went for Stairway because I love the iconic solo.

Edit: wow. 43/42 in favour of Stairway. Fascinating.

[Pettor]

I think a lot of people tend to like both and think it's unfair when one is winning so vote for the other one

[Kotowboy]

Not only : Stairway to Heaven > Bohemian Rhapsody

But Also : Innuendo > Bohemian Rhapsody

[Stadler]

What's the better song to make out to (there's only one correct answer here, this is not subjective.  )?

Nailed it.  Like you were reading my mind.