{"id":1499,"date":"2007-11-28T13:00:54","date_gmt":"2007-11-28T13:00:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/idolchatter\/2007\/11\/the-songs-mostly-remain-the-sa.html"},"modified":"2007-11-28T13:00:54","modified_gmt":"2007-11-28T13:00:54","slug":"the-songs-mostly-remain-the-sa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2007\/11\/the-songs-mostly-remain-the-sa.html","title":{"rendered":"The Songs, Mostly, Remain the Same"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"IMP20311.jpg\"Ah, the holidays, time for family feasts, parties, and rock-radio countdowns of the greatest songs of all time. At Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s, classic-rock stations traditionally turn to these listener-driven stunts (\u201cYou picked ’em, we\u2019re playing \u2018em”) to salvage some ratings oomph while their audience is distracted by football and family lore. More traditionally yet, \u201cStairway to Heaven\u201d by Led Zeppelin always, always, takes the top spot.
\nThe song has little to do with religious visions of paradise, even if the lyrics\u2019 author, Zeppelin vocalist Robert Plant, says the song\u2019s opening lines came to him in an almost supernatural fashion. Suddenly, he has said, “my hand was writing out the words, ‘There’s a lady who’s sure, all that glitters is gold, and she’s buying a stairway to heaven’. I just sat there and looked at them and almost leapt out of my seat.” Plant explains was that the phrase itself “was some cynical aside about a woman getting everything she wanted all the time without giving back.\u201d<\/p>\n


\n\u201cStairway to Heaven\u201d isn\u2019t the only repeat appearance, of course. A knot of meaningful themes usually hover around the bottom of the top ten, though year to year they vary, perhaps with changes in the cultural currents.
\nOn the New York station<\/a> I was listening to over the Thanksgiving weekend, John Lennon\u2019s \u201cImagine,\u201d echoing the 2007 bestseller lists\u2019 doubts about heaven, hell and religion, came in at no. 13\u2014its highest placement in at least four years.
\nAt no. 11, The Beatles \u201cLet It Be,\u201d with its reverent stoicism and churchy organ, gained several places over recent years. Nearly constant over the years, at no. 9 or 10, is the popularity of the Stones returned with \u201cSympathy for the Devil,\u201din which Mick Jagger, as Lucifer, sings, \u201cWhat\u2019s puzzling you is the nature of my game.\u201d The mystery of why bad things happen, one surmises, is eternal.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ah, the holidays, time for family feasts, parties, and rock-radio countdowns of the greatest songs of all time. At Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s, classic-rock stations traditionally turn to these listener-driven stunts (\u201cYou picked ’em, we\u2019re playing \u2018em”) to salvage some ratings oomph while their audience is distracted by football and family lore. More traditionally…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":110,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fbia_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1499","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-music"],"yoast_head":"\nThe Songs, Mostly, Remain the Same<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2007\/11\/the-songs-mostly-remain-the-sa.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Songs, Mostly, Remain the Same\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Ah, the holidays, time for family feasts, parties, and rock-radio countdowns of the greatest songs of all time. At Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s, classic-rock stations traditionally turn to these listener-driven stunts (\u201cYou picked ’em, we\u2019re playing \u2018em”) to salvage some ratings oomph while their audience is distracted by football and family lore. 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