Cultural Appropriation and Food

[Rev. Rye]

Zeppelin borrowed from everyone.  The Lemon Song is taken from Howlin Wolf.  Chess Records from the early 60s inspired a whole movement in rock music.  Black Mountain Side is an Irish folk tune.  They lifted a few bars from Randy California and made the most popular song ever.  Each of those songs are enhanced by their own creativity and innovation, in ways better than the source material.  All the same, they owe those who inspired them.   What, I don't know.

The particular lyric "squeeze my lemon till the juice runs down my leg" that supplied the title itself came from another bluesman, Robert Johnson. 





And that line, knowing how many of Johnson's songs have their clear antecedents, probably came from this song: 





And the other song that formed the nucleus of "The Lemon Song" came from a song by Skip James:





I've been into the blues most of my life and you don't get into it for that long without noticing that blatantly ripping each other off is kind of part and parcel of the genre. Then again, Robert Johnson, Howlin Wolf, and Skip James never got rich enough to fill stadiums across the planet.