Heartbreak Hotel told Durden, "Everybody in the world has someone who cares. Let's put a Heartbreak Hotel at the end of this lonely street". They were interrupted by the arrival of Glenn Reeves, a local performer who had previously worked with Axton. The duo asked Reeves to help with the song, but after hearing the title he remarked that it was "the silliest thing I've ever heard", and left them to finish it themselves. The song was written within an hour, and Durden recorded it onto Axton's tape recorder. Reeves returned, and after hearing the song he was asked to provide a
Heartbreak Hotel (The Simpsons) "just do it how Mike Nichols said to." Dennis Perkins of "The A.V. Club" gave the episode a B- stating, “‘Heartbreak Hotel’ does a fine job at supplying a motivation that—while new to us—is true to the characters. Especially Marge, whose decades-long addiction to the reality competition travel show The Amazing Place is seen to be rooted in the long Homer-less hours as a football-and-Moe's widow. Marge explains that, while Homer has his pursuits, she has hers in the form of an encyclopedic knowledge of every hashtagged event, stunt, and twist her favorite show can throw at its grasping contestants.”