Stairway to Heaven and Cigarettes

This article below says that one of the reasons for the big success of Stairway to Heaven by Led Zeppelin was its 8 minute length, in which DJs had enough time to smoke a cigarette. So the more addicted a DJ was, the more often it got played. Back then, you did not have the fancy digital equipment to program multiple songs, you only had vinyl. So a song that was not only brilliant, but one that allowed you to have a smoke, was huge. Jimmy Page’s brilliant lead riff at the end, and Robert Plant’s final words was no doubt the signal to stub out the butt and head back in the studio.

http://blog.merlinmoon.com/home/2009/12/led-zeppelins-stairway-to-heaven-successful-by-accident.html

The song also had an intense, almost religious effect on America’s youth, to the extent it was the main song that was used for suicides. For the kids that were not really interested in church, the mystical and beautiful song was so important they made it the last music they ever heard. Little did people know that a major role in this legendary song’s exposure was simply a desire to smoke cigarettes.