Who wrote the song "Stairway to Heaven"?

Jimmy Page and Robert Plant wrote “Stairway to Heaven,” Led Zeppelin’s celebrated 1971 rock epic. Page composed the music, while Plant wrote the lyrics, making the songwriting credit a collaboration between the guitarist and vocalist.

The song was developed during sessions for Led Zeppelin IV. Page assembled its distinctive musical structure from acoustic and electric ideas, while Plant wrote much of the lyric at Headley Grange in Hampshire. The arrangement gradually grows from a quiet, finger-picked acoustic opening into a full hard-rock climax and Page’s famous guitar solo.

“Stairway to Heaven” was released on Led Zeppelin IV on November 8, 1971. Although it became one of the most requested songs on American FM radio, Atlantic Records never issued it as a standard U.S. single, encouraging listeners to buy the full album instead.

The other band members performed on the recording—John Paul Jones played bass and keyboards, and John Bonham played drums—but they were not the song’s credited writers. That distinction explains why the canonical answer is Page and Plant.