In high school, I read in some book about the most famous and important rock and roll songs. The top one was Stairway to Heaven. Having grown up in a small Montana town that didn't have a true rock and roll station, my knowledge of rock music was very lacking. Even in high school, I was just getting introduced to AC/DC, The Who, Aerosmith, etc.

I knew about the bands that hit when I was in high school. Rockers like Guns N Roses, Mötley Crüe, Def Leppard and Skid Row. Their ancestors, not as much. I'd probably heard of them, but I probably couldn't tell you much more than the basics.

So, I hadn't even heard Stairway -- or if I had, I didn't remember hearing it. But I read about it, and so asked my Dad. Dad was no rock and roll superfan, he was more into folk, and maybe The Outfield or Dire Straights or Yes. He liked songs that he could play in a group of people, maybe around a campfire, just Dad and his guitar.

At the time we lived in a super-small town. The entire length of the town was about six blocks, maybe eight blocks wide. So, one day we are getting in the car to drive to Dad's gf's for dinner, and I asked him about it. He said something about finding someone who had a copy. In those days, there was no way to listen to a song you hadn't heard unless you had it on vinyl or cassette, and Dad didn't. The other option was to have it play on the radio, but DJs took forever to get to requests.

But -- unbelievably -- at that moment, Stairway to Heaven came on the radio!

Again, if you didn't grow up in this era, this was a miracle! Now I can search on Youtube and get almost any song's original, and hundreds of covers and live shows, and breakdowns about what it meant or it's history.

At that moment with Dad, Stairway starts up, and instead of heading to his then-girlfriend's for dinner, Dad says, "better take a drive, this is a long one" and we head out of town.

The first time I remember hearing Stairway to Heaven was on a lonely two lane road on an overcast Fall day in the shadows of the Rocky Mountains.

If you are a Zeppelin uber-fan, you aren't going to like my next sentence. I was underwhelmed. It starts pretty slow, it's interesting, maybe beautiful, and it rocks for about a minute. This is the best rock song ever? I think we have a couple dozen songs ahead of it, I'm not gonna lie.

Now I understand the significance and meaning a little, and the layers of it, but first listen, fifteen or something years old, I was kind of surprised. It finished with a flourish -- still the best part about the song, honestly, but I was like, "well, okay, I guess." I probably would have substituted quite a few Aerosmith or AC/DC songs in the top slot at that point in my life.

I went on to love Over the Hills and Far Away the most, which has some of the same vibes, though a song of it's own, and Stairway is fine; I remember it mostly because of how I was introduced to it.

Check out this early Led Zeppelin studio video. Crazy how close the audience is, just sitting on the floor, craning their necks awkwardly.

Here's the Stairway to Heaven Wikipedia Page.