\u201cFor 50 years, listeners felt it in their bones without knowing why.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Led Zeppelin\u2019s \u201cStairway to Heaven\u201d is instantly recognizable to millions, even those who aren\u2019t big classic rock listeners. But as songwriter, music producer, and guitarist JB Eckl points out, one part of the epic song is even more familiar than people realize, and in a beautifully morbid way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In an episode of \u201cSacred Riffs,\u201d Eckl (aka the Bob Ross of rock) shared that he and his wife were watching Frozen 2 when he noticed something peculiar. The four-note siren call Elsa hears in the film sounded an awful lot like the four-note slide in the guitar solo of \u201cStairway to Heaven.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The ubiquity of Dies Irae in music and film
Eckl\u2019s Internet rabbit hole dive revealed that the four-note sequence is actually part of a 13th-century Gregorian chant called the Dies Irae (Latin for \u201cDay of Wrath\u201d). For 800 years, this specific collection of notes has been used for a specific purpose.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cComposed around 1270, Dies Irae has been music\u2019s signal for \u2018death is here\u2019 ever since,\u201d Eckl explains. \u201cMozart, Berlioz, Liszt, Rachmaninoff, they all borrowed it. Film composers love it. You\u2019ve heard it in The Shining, It\u2019s a Wonderful Life, Star Wars, The Lion King. It\u2019s been called a musical Wilhelm scream [a famous stock sound effect of a man screaming that has been used in hundreds of films]. When you need an audience to feel mortality without being told, you play Dies Irae.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It\u2019s true. Vox did a whole video about Dies Irae in movies. Once you hear it, it\u2019s hard not to recognize it everywhere.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Purposeful inclusion or unintentional genius?
So why did Led Zeppelin guitarist Jimmy Page use Dies Irae in \u201cStairway to Heaven\u201d? Was it on purpose or just coincidental? Eckl only begins to speculate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201c\u2018Stairway to Heaven\u2019s lyrics kind of resist interpretation,\u201d says Eckl. \u201cIs it a cautionary fable about materialism? Is it a pagan allegory? Is it random fridge poetry?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Eckl points out Page being \u201csteeped in esoteric tradition,\u201d so there\u2019s a possibility he included the Dies Irae purposefully. Then again, it could have been subconscious.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIt may have just been instinct, which is kinda the same as saying genius,\u201d said Eckl. \u201cEither way, Led Zeppelin had a centuries-old funeral chant in the most played rock song in history, and for 50 years, listeners felt it in their bones without knowing why.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Eckl said in a follow-up video that it doesn\u2019t really matter whether Jimmy Page intentionally used Dies Irae.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cAll that matters is that he plucked that out of the ether,\u201d Eckl said. \u201cIt was either cultural influences, personal experiences\u2014this is how all art works\u2014or just plain old intuition. Whatever it is, that is what we want from our artists. That\u2019s what we want as artists.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Exploring the intersection of spirituality and rock & roll
Eckl points out that even pointing to a small part of \u201cStairway to Heaven\u201d gets people talking about all kinds of deeper concepts, which is what art is supposed to do. It\u2019s also what the \u201cSacred Riffs\u201d series is all about.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The idea for the series came from conversations between Eckl and actor Rainn Wilson, who hosts the Soul Boom podcast. \u201cSacred Riffs\u201d lives on the Soul Boom platform and the goal is simply to \u201cexplore the intersection of spirituality and rock & roll.\u201d Eckl, who has worked with Carlos Santana, War, En Vogue, and more, says he hopes it gets people to look deeper into music.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe\u2019re surrounded by a lot of disposable content, artists optimizing for TikTok etc, to say nothing of AI,\u201d Eckl tells Upworthy. \u201cWe\u2019ve lost a lot of the ritual around music, and the idea that it can be life-changing. If these videos spark some of that kind of curiosity, we\u2019ve done our job.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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