Lefsetz: Climbing the Stairway to Heaven

Led Zeppelin guitarist Jimmy Page is 72…

I don’t know whether he ripped off Spirit, whether he and Robert Plant will be held accountable by the jury, but I do know there will come a time when both of them won’t be here anymore. Or they will be, but they’ll be too infirm to play.

Been a strange year out there, from David Bowie to Glenn Frey to Merle Haggard to Prince. With Dan Hicks and a bunch of lesser lights extinguished to boot. They defined a generation. And now they’re gone.

My mother just told me that she’s the last one standing.

Do you have a deceased parent?

It’s a club you don’t want to be a member of. If you’re lucky, you’ll end up an orphan, although I’m not looking forward to that day, when there’s no context, when I realize I’m next…

Not that anybody my age acknowledges that. That’s the problem with Baby Boomers. They always think they’ll rule, that they’ll be here forever. But even Sumner Redstone is gonna pass – futurist Ray Kurzweil too. And as much as Steve Jobs changed our culture, Apple no longer even introduces one more thing. his signature style is gone. Kinda like the bands of yore, either you saw them or you didn’t.

But what’s even worse, so many of them have not survived into the second decade of the twenty first century. Does anybody under 20 know who 10cc was? Or even Gerardo? They’re bleeding edge, they’re on the oldies circuit, they become ill and then they die. Meanwhile life keeps moving forward.

I saw Led Zeppelin, twice, back when Jimmy Page was still dangerous, before his hair had turned white. The goal was to get inside the Riot House, to become part of it. Musicians even had groupies. But in today’s tabloid world nobody does anything untoward and we hear endlessly about nerd power and I don’t even recognize the landscape anymore.

And when they talk about the money “Stairway”‘s made they never reference the cultural impact, how rock radio ruled and the tune was always number one, the most famous, the toppermost of the poppermost.

Doesn’t matter whether the intro was nicked or not, it’s part of my DNA. And yours. A cultural institution.

But I don’t think Justin Bieber has it on infinite repeat.

I don’t see it on the Spotify charts. Everything meaningful fades. Whether it be Johnny Carson or Jay Leno. And when they try to keep the franchise alive it just makes you squirm.

Cancel SNL. Once upon a time it was dangerous, John and Danny tested limits we didn’t even know existed. And Jimmy Fallon does David Letterman’s show, poorly, and the press gives him a pass. Makes me want to scream at the screen like Grandpa Simpson, but we laugh at him and I don’t want everybody laughing at me.

Everybody’s got something wrong with them. The body mutates and rebels and no one gets out of here alive. But when you’re 25, you think you’re immune, but you’re not.

I cry for Glenn Frey.

I lament my brethren going on a desert trip to see has-beens, however gigantic they once might have been. I don’t want my memories tarnished, I want to remember how it once was. Thank god for Robert Plant refusing to regroup. It’d be like Magic and Bird, Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen, playing basketball again. Sometimes the era passes.

But the memories and feelings live on.

Once upon a time “Stairway To Heaven” was brand new. You dropped the needle and went on an aural adventure. You enjoyed hearing it on the radio, it made you feel warm and fuzzy, it set your mind free.

But now it’s just a signifier of what once was.

Who even cares if it survives? We won’t.

We think everything we do is important, we build a resume, acquire assets and try to climb the ladder when the truth is no ladder exists. We’re here and then we’re gone. And intellectually I knew this, but today I feel it.