Last weekend my friend Mike (a frequent vistor to this blog) and I had a discussion about Led Zeppelin lyrics. Mike was surprized to find out that some great lines he had always attributed to the pen of Robert Plant actually belonged to old bluesmen. In fact, I told him, Robert Plant is probably the single greatest rip-off artist of all time. Come to think of it, perhaps "single greatest rip-off artist" is a bit strong--in this day of mashing and sampling it's quite possible that the title might be disputed by Puff Daddy, or any of a dozen or so other artists who have built a whole career on reusing previously recorded material. Anyway I can't think of anyone else who borrowed lyrics so unabashedly, and with such great success (although to be fair most of this borrowing took place on the first three Zep albums. I don't suppose any bluesman ever wrote anything like "The Battle of Evermore" or "Kashmir.")
Anyway, Mike and I were talking specifically about "The Lemon Song" Zep's famous, sexually charged, opus. For his benefit and yours I copied the lyrics from what is--as far as I know--the original source, or at least the originally recorded and preserved source of these infamous lyrics. They come from the Robert Johnson song "Travelling Riverside Blues" originally recorded (according to one web source) in November of 1936 in San Antonio, Texas. Here is the pertainent bit:
Now you can squeeze my lemon 'til the juice run down my...
(spoken) 'til the juice rune down my leg, baby, you know what I'm talkin' about
You can squeeze my lemon 'til the juice run down my leg
(spoken) That's what I'm talkin' 'bout, now
But I'm goin' back to Friars Point, if I be rockin'to my head
Zeppelin also had a tune called "Travelling Riverside Blues" which was a minor hit for them when they released it as the single for the big box set they put out in the early '90's. There are dozens of more examples I'm sure but I won't bore you with them. If you're interested you can look up "The Hunter" by Albert King for another blatant example from the same record (Zep II).
1 comment:
I believe Travellin Riverside Blues was released as a b-side to The Immigrant Song, or possibly Communication Breakdown. I actually owned a 45 version of it, way back when I started listening to Zep, before the boxed set, and I remember thinking 'this is a pretty lame Zeppelin song'.
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