3A. Exploration of Cover Songs

I chose to listen to Stairway to Heaven by Led Zeppelin and covered by Stanley Jordan. Both are done amazingly in their very own way. These songs have a lot of the same to them but still Stanley Jordan was able to add his own spice to the song.

The songs are most different in the fact that one has lyrics and the other is almost all instrumental, and pretty much all guitar at that so it is not worth discussing the lyrics other then to look at the fact that this song almost does not need lyrics to get its point across which may be what Stanley Jordan was trying to point out when he did not include lyrics and instead added his own spice to parts that would have had singing while being played. The lyrics of this song is very much about words and thoughts. The whole song is almost about wondering so maybe what Stanley Jordan was trying to say is that instead of singing about it just wonder while playing.

Another part where the song seems to differ between the cover and the one by Led Zeppelin is the musical quality. Both songs start out slow and and through the song the speed increases and so does the intensity. The only thing is that Stanley Jordan adds a little more to each of these things then the original. When Stanley Jordan increases the speed his song becomes almost a speedy song while the original only speeds up a little making it almost a normal speed where as when it began it was almost too slow to be a song. When Stanley increases the intensity the song adds drums banging and crashing, while so does Led Zeppelin but the drums are not banging and crashing they are just being added to create more depth to the song. Both focus at one point on the instrumental guitar solo but this is where some of the most contrast between the two songs begins. At this point the listener of these two songs would almost not be able to recognize the fact that they were the same song. At this point Stanley Jordan takes his own spin on the song and goes into almost a different guitar solo but with the original song as the rhythm to go off of.  The songs kept the same organization the entire time. They did this by having the same beginning with the slow start, Stanley Jordan may of gone on his own wild tangent during the guitar solo but he did do the guitar solo at the same time, and then ended the song at the same time making the songs almost the exact same length and time.

Even though Stanley Jordan does an amazing job of playing the cover of this song the winner in my heart will always be Led Zeppelin. Even though Stanley Jordan tried to change some parts about the song to make it his he didn’t change the right things and I felt that by taking the lyrics out of the song he took a part of the song that actually helps make the song what it is.