During the recording of "For Your Life" at Musicland Studios, Led Zeppelin singer Robert Plant was convalescing from a car accident which he had sustained in Greece the previous year, and he delivered his vocal performance from a wheelchair.
The song's vocals are notable in part because of the snorting sound heard around 5:30, with the lyrics: "With the fine lines of the crystal payin' through your nose".
Plant later explained the song's venom was due in part to his observations of the excessive amount of cocaine which had now pervaded and ruined the music scene in Los Angeles, during his stay on the West Coast prior to recording.
[3] The lyrics, written by Plant, indicate that one part of the song also has to do with an unnamed female acquaintance of his, who got drawn into the Los Angeles drug scene, to whom he wags a finger and says "watch it."
In an interview he gave to rock journalist Cameron Crowe, Page commented on the spontaneous nature of the song's construction, saying that it "was made up in the studio, right on the spot".