Lead singer Robert Plant of Led Zeppelin heard “Heartbreak Hotel” when he was just 8 years old; he has said that the song “changed my life”:  “It was so animal, so sexual, the first musical arousal I ever had.  You could see a twitch in everybody my age.  All we knew about the guy was that he was cool, handsome and looked wild.”  

(June 2013/1)

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I found a couple of quotes from Robert Plant about “Stairway to Heaven” on a website called enotes.com:  “It [the song] was done very quickly.  It took a little working out, but it was a fluid, unnaturally easy track.  It was almost as if — uh oh — it just had to be gotten out at the time.  There was something pushing it saying, ‘You guys are okay, but if you want to do something timeless, here's a wedding song for you.’ . . .  Robert Plant once stated that the song was ‘. . . a woman’s quest for spiritual perfection’ and ‘. . . a simple wedding song’.” 

In an interesting take on the legacy of this song, Wikipedia adds:  “Erik Davis, a social historian and cultural critic, commented on the song’s massive success, subsequent backlash and enduring legendary status:  ‘“Stairway to Heaven” isn’t the greatest rock song of the 1970’s; it is the greatest spell of the 1970’s.  Think about it:  We are all sick of the thing, but in some primordial way it is still number one.  Everyone knows it. . . .  Even our dislike and mockery is ritualistic.  The dumb parodies; the Wayne’s World-inspired folklore about guitar shops demanding customers not play it; even Robert Plant’s public disavowal of the song — all of these just prove the rule.  “Stairway to Heaven” is not just number one.  It is The One, the quintessence, the closest AOR [album-oriented rock] will ever get you to the absolute.”  

(November 2014)