Led Zeppelin front man Robert Plant has joked that the band wrote their 1971 classic ‘Stairway To Heaven’ specifically for Dolly Parton.

Seemingly a bit hacked off with journalists asking about how he wrote the lyrics in just 15 minutes, Plant remarked: “"I can't bloody remember what inspired that one. But, you know, maybe I wrote it for Dolly."

Parton recorded a ‘country-bluegrass’ version of the famous track just five years ago for her album ‘Halos and Horns.’

In the interview with the Scotsman, Plant went on to reveal his admiration for Atlantic Records co-founder Ahmet Ertegun - in whose memory of course the band are performing a tribute concert for this December.

Before Led Zep were even signed to the imprint, Plant says he had a lot of respect for Ertegun, saying: “When Jimmy (Page) and Peter (Grant, Zeppelin's manager) came back from hawking our tracks around New York and announced we'd got a deal with Atlantic, I just fell on the floor crying.”

He continued: "Ahmet was a genius who worked with the most amazing voices - Aretha Franklin, Roberta Flack - but couldn't sing a note. He'd say to me 'Robert, why don't you not sing that bit?' If he liked something he'd say 'The thing about you, Robert, is your soul goes so deep.' No one taught me how to sing. Let's face it, I tried to steal from so many people. I wanted to be Steve Merrick, Terry Reid, OV Wright, Otis Rush.

"So I owe Ahmet a lot. He would turn up at our shows with Henry Kissinger and the guy who owned most of Manhattan with lots of his nieces following behind. I got to know a few of them as the years went on. That's why we're doing this gig."