Quote:
Originally Posted by DaneMcCloud
How quickly did he and Plant compose the song?
$56k in mechanical publishing royalties divided by time would equal the hourly rate.
Page could have created the structure of the song in two minutes or two days or two weeks or two months. The lyrics might have come that quickly or taken months.
Edit: According to Wiki, it took Page a long period of time to write the song, which first began in 1970.
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Hmm, let's make a guess. First, let's assume that Led Zeppelin was a 50 hour a week gig for Page. You want to be good, you're not clocking out at 40 hours.
Now, they were touring in 1970, so that took some time, along with promotions and other activities. Let's assume that perhaps they were spending half their time, 25 hours a week, working on Led Zeppelin IV.
Led Zeppelin IV has eight songs, but about one-sixth of the running time is Stairway to Heaven. 25 hours per week x 52 weeks = 1,300 hours of Page's labor, so I would estimate perhaps 220 hours on Stairway.
So his base fee would be $56,000/220 hours, or $255 per hour. However, those 220 hours produced a whole lot of high-rate income since he makes money every time the song is played now even though he's not having to get up there with a guitar and play it.
I think his time on this is worth far more than $255 per hour. I think it should also include a significant share of his residuals because that money is rewarding both his playing and his composing.