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 named the hotel after the song, located across the street from Presley's home, Graceland, in Memphis, Tennessee. In the CBS miniseries "Elvis", a two-part, four hour television movie that explores Elvis Presley's life, a scene depicts Presley (played by Jonathan Rhys Meyers) wanting to record "Heartbreak Hotel" when he first arrives at RCA. The song is later used when he is performing at The Dorsey Brothers Stage Show, with Meyers lip-synching. In 2015, "Heartbreak Hotel" was named as The #2 Song of the Rock Era in the book "The Top 500 Songs of the Rock Era: 1955-2015". Radio humorist Stan