Robert Plant made the courtroom ‘roar with laughter’ during his testimony at the ‘Stairway To Heaven‘ plagiarism trial.
According to the Guardian, much mirth was generated in the court room as Plant was asked to talk through his dealings with the sixties band Spirit, responding that he doesn’t ‘have a recollection of almost anyone I’ve hung out with’.
Plant did though recall his version of ‘Stairway’s origins, stating that he was with Jimmy Page when the guitarist began the song’s introduction , to which he added the now legendary pre-existing couplet, “There’s a lady who’s sure all that glitters is gold, and she’s buying a stairway to heaven”.
From there, Plant said, ‘it started rolling pretty fast’.
Led Zeppelin are being accused of stealing the opening riff for one of their signature rock tunes from Spirit. Michael Skidmore, a trustee for that band’s late member Randy Wolfe, has brought the case over an instrumental written by Wolfe in 1967.